SALT LAKE CITY -- A man arrested eight years ago on the Weber River is asking the Utah Supreme Court to take a hard look at a law that allows the riverbed in public waterways to be controlled by adjacent property owners.

A trespassing charge against Keven Conatser of Roy was dismissed long ago. But he's pressing ahead, trying to get the Supreme Court to allow people to stand in the water.

"Standing on the riverbed is reasonably necessary for full enjoyment of the right to fish on a public waterway," Conatser's attorney, Robert Hughes, told the court Thursday. "Other courts have recognized it's a customary method of fishing."

People already have the right to fish from a boat, he noted, and walk in the stream to push a boat off a sandbar.

Utah needs to change its laws regarding water use "because water is scarce here and recreation in the state is expanding," Hughes said.

But Ron Russell, an attorney representing six farmers with land along the Weber River in Morgan County, spoke of a "right to float" instead of a right to fish.

"When you start to create a new right to a public river beyond the right to float, you're going down a slippery slope," he said.

Russell said Montana had a law that allowed public access to the riverbed, defined as up to the high-water mark of the bank.

That led to campsites, duck blinds, even boat ramps on what had previously been private property, he said. The law was struck down by the Montana Supreme Court.

But Utah Chief Justice Christine Durham said standing on a riverbed to fish isn't the same as duck blinds and camping.

Conatser and his wife were in a boat on the Weber River in 2000. The trespassing charge was dismissed two years later because of conflicting stories about whether he let his feet touch the bottom.