The Louisiana Legislature directed Louisiana Sea Grant to study and make recommendations for the creation of a voluntary public recreation servitude of use of coastal waterways. To fulfill the objectives of the resolution, Louisiana Sea Grant met with three stakeholder groups to document concerns and options: recreational fishermen, state agencies and coastal landowners. Based on this input and additional information sources, Louisiana Sea Grant developed a 63-page report entitled: “Preliminary Options for Establishing Recreational Servitudes for Aquatic Access over Private Water Bottoms.” The report provides an overview of the context, history and drivers of the issue, describes the process utilized for soliciting stakeholder input, and details legal and economic considerations for ten preliminary options that could be used to partially mitigate the conflict. The consensus-driven study report was the basis for a state legislative task force commissioned to address this decades-old conflict over coastal aquatic access.
