Public land access advocates are celebrating a ruling Thursday by the Montana Supreme Court upholding the state's stream access law and clarifying the public's rights to use historic rights-of-way.

In a case involving a group of roads near the Ruby River in Madison County, the high court sided with the Public Lands Access Association and against the county and an out-of-state landowner -- James Cox Kennedy, chairman of media conglomerate Cox Enterprises -- who had blocked access to the river through parts of his 3,000-acre ranch.

The suit first began in 2004, whtn the PLAA sued Madison County claiming that property owners had put fences along public roads, blocking access to the river.

The court said that right-of-way on a road established by "prescriptive use" -- that is, by use of the route over time, whether or not the county formally designated it a county road -- was not limited to just that historic use but also included foreseeable public uses, including recreation.

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Montana ranks ninth best among the 50 states for its overall fiscal condition in the 2012 budget year, a new study published for a George Mason University center concluded.

That overall ranking was determined after using four “solvency indices” in the study by Sarah Arnett. It was published by the university’s Mercatus Center, a market-oriented think tank. 

Here are the rankings by solvency indices for fiscal 2012, along with Montana’s ranking for each:

— Cash solvency, a liquidity measurement that takes into account the cash that a state can easily access to pay its bills in the near term: Montana ranked fifth best.

— Budget solvency, which measures a state’s ability to come up with enough revenue to cover its expenses over a fiscal year. Montana ranked eighth.

— Long run solvency, which is a measurement of a state’s ability to use incoming revenue to cover all its expenditures, including guaranteed pension benefits and infrastructure maintenance. Montana ranked ninth.

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