BRETT FRENCH | bfrench@billingsgazette.com
As the summer floating season rows into high gear on the Yellowstone River, state agencies are continuing to negotiate with BNSF Railway to reopen a popular undeveloped access point in Stillwater County.
The area is known as the Twin Bridges or Two Bridges site to locals, a reference to the parallel railroad and highway bridges that once existed. In 2019, the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) tore down the deteriorating, then-90-year-old, bridge but maintains it still has an easement to the river.
However in April, BNSF erected a barricade, gated and locked a road and posted no-trespassing signs at the access point at the end of the road.
“The temporary barriers were put in place by BNSF in coordination with MDT to address unauthorized public entry and use of railroad property for parking and other recreational activities,” a BNSF spokesperson wrote in an email. “Trespassing poses safety and security concerns for railroad operations.”
Yet the site had been open to the public for decades until a Montana Rail Link train derailed and the bridge collapsed in June 2023. That has prompted negotiations between the railroad’s attorneys and the state of Montana over damages sustained from the discharge of 419,000 pounds of asphalt petroleum liquid that spilled from damaged rail cars into the river.
Popular access to river
The rocky beach alongside the bridges is located eight miles downstream from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ Indian Fort fishing access site near Reed Point and five miles upstream from Holmgren FAS near Columbus. The beach was a popular site for agate hunting, boat launching and fishing.
In the spring of 2019, Fish, Wildlife & Parks began exploring the possibility of building a fishing access site (FAS) at Twin Bridges. The agency released a draft environmental assessment outlining work at the proposed “Bridge 51 FAS” with an expectation that construction could be completed by that fall.
The draft environmental assessment proposed leasing 2 acres from BNSF Railway and adding improvements like a designated gravel parking area, an improved access road, boundary fencing, signage and a latrine for $40,000. The proposal was for day use only; no overnight camping would be allowed.
The project was considered important by FWP due to the popularity of floating and fishing on this section of river. According to the agency, the average angler days per year from 2005 to 2013 on the 42-mile stretch from the Stillwater River (river mile 412) upstream to the Boulder River (river mile 454) was 12,323, with a low of 4,961 in 2011 and a high of 18,612 in 2005.
Since the surveys, angler and boating use has increased considerably.
“Due to the good trout fishery in this reach of the Yellowstone River, the strategic location between two FAS’s, and the pioneered access being located within BNSF (right-of-way) with no formal public access agreement, this project is a high priority,” the draft EA noted.
Stalled fishing access site
The reason why the project never came to fruition is unknown, although that year FWP’s long-serving regional fisheries manager retired.
Then in 2022, under Gov. Gianforte’s newly installed FWP director, oversight of fishing access sites was moved from the Fisheries Division to the division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation.
Also, negotiating with railroads to allow access for anglers along the Yellowstone River has proven difficult in the past.
In 2002, Montana Rail Link proposed the installation of an expensive crossing signal before public access be provided across the tracks outside of Huntley to reach the Yellowstone River below the Huntley irrigation diversion dam.
It took two years before FWP could get a railroad crossing agreement to access the Holmgren fishing access site, located between Reed Point and Columbus on the Yellowstone River.
MDT has an easement
What seems unusual in this instance is that the Department of Transportation has an existing easement at the site.
The easement dates to 2019 when the agency purchased the 580-acre Deeny ranch for $2.8 million. MDT bought the ranch on the north side of the Yellowstone River because that was cheaper than fixing the bridge, which would have cost an estimated $4.5 million to $6 million. The bridge provided the only automobile access to the land that MDT purchased.
However, the BNSF claims the easement was never maintained.
In a BNSF email to the Billings Gazette, a company representative said in April, “There is no authorized or maintained access point at Twin Bridges Road. There was a prior Right-of-Way Easement for a public road to the former (Montana Department of Transportation) bridge across the river. That easement hasn’t been maintained, and it doesn’t provide for use beyond a roadway.”
BNSF’s representative reaffirmed that stance in their recent email, pointing to FWP’s own draft environmental assessment for the fishing access site as proof.
In the document, FWP noted, “Because private land borders the BNSF (right of way) on the east and west, there is no legal access to the river at this location.”
Following talks between MDT and BNSF several weeks ago, the railway company removed its barricade from the road and relocated it to the approach to the railroad bridge, according to Mike Taylor of MDT.
Access discussions continue
Despite the gate, signage and barricade BNSF installed, the company’s representative said, “BNSF and Montana Rail Link, Inc. are in ongoing discussions with the state on establishing a lease for a Fishing Access Site (FAS) accessible via Two Bridges Road, and BNSF is open to leasing a portion of its property for that purpose.”
When asked about the status of the closure, Greg Lemon, administrator for FWP’s Communications & Education Division, wrote in an email, “The three parties responsible for the road, river, and rail (MDT, FWP and BNSF) are working together to provide safe transport of people and freight and working along the Yellowstone to improve fishing access.”
Given the delay since FWP’s last fishing access site proposal was seen as a priority at Twin Bridges, when a deal may be struck seems less urgent than it was six years ago.
