Eden Isles commercial crabbing issue - solved 2019
by John Faust - Crab traps in the canals 8-21-2019
To answer some questions pertaining to the over 100 crab traps being put in the canals in Eden Isles and Clipper. These traps seem to belong to commercial fishermen. The canals in Eden Isles and Clipper are private canals. The water bottoms are also privately owned. The property owners on each side of the canal each own half the canal. The canal areas are not open to commercial crabbing operations.
The traps are being placed with little or no regard to the property owners. When this happened in the past Wildlife and Fisheries did nothing however suggested that the property owners did have the right to remove the traps off their property. I suggest everyone to contact their homeowners associations and post the canals are private and not open to commercial crabbing operation. Enforcement by the sheriff’s office may be possible if the operations continue. It will get out of hand as more commercial crabbers begin to put traps on our property.
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by Lee Longstreet - Crab traps in the canals 8-23-2019
The "Greater Eden Isles Area" is under attack. If this attack is not defended then the victims (us) will be defeated and loose the sanctity of single family residential living.
State Bills have been introduced (fortunately failed) that would have rescinded the right to our canals remaining private. Our canals and our lots were human built by the original developer. We bought those lots and improvements. We each purchased our piece of Eden Isles and it's man made canals.
Our canals are not streams, bayous, rivers etc. They are man made and we paid for them as evidenced by title and survey. Please see survey database at https://atlas.geoportalmaps.com/st_tammany
There are special interest groups that want to take away your enjoyment of privacy normally associated with the zoning classified as single family home ownership and then use your property for their own purposes.
1. Commercial fishing tournaments. aka Bass Tournaments These events would draw hundreds of non residents into the subdivision that would clean out the fish and destroy the nursery aspect of fish reproduction.
2. Commercial fishing (currently crabbing) Creates an eyesore, a hazard to navigation, disturbs privacy in an area zoned as single family residential and is a trespass on private property.
3. Short term rentals. Absurd - how is it that code enforcement does not recognize these commercial ventures as clearly being at odds with single family residential zoning.
Single family residential zoning prohibits commercial activities
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by John Faust - Crab traps in the canals 8-24-2019
To all, Again, my first post was to address ownership of the canal bottoms and commercial crabbing in these subdivisions.
The water bottoms that you own carries as much rights as the land you own above the water. This only applies to the land. It does not apply to the water above it. Covenants in these areas allow boat traffic to flow freely.
Unless you give permission to anyone to conduct any activity on your property they are considered to be trespassing.
As I understand you may be held responsible for any activity you allow to be conducted on your property.
The fact is that these waterways were man made and falls under different guidelines than natural waterways. Which includes owning water bottoms (not the water) and restrictions as to the activities can be conducted on those areas i.e. covenants.
Covenants are civil matters and trespassing is a criminal action. Trespassing is enforced by the sheriffs office.
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by John Faust - Crab traps in the canals 8-24-2019
The sheriff’s office has contacted me and they are handling the matter.
As I understand one of the commercial crabber has been contacted and he is removing his traps.
Deputy Wood is the Deputy handling the matter. He is today attempting to contact the other two commercial crabbers and inform them that they have to remove their traps.
My intention was to address the rights of the property owners and possible issues when commercial operations are allowed to continue. I am glad to see that through proper channels this situation has been resolved.