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ATLANTA – Laws guaranteeing Georgians the best to hunt and fish within the state’s navigable rivers and streams is on its method to Gov. Brian Kemp.
The state Senate gave closing passage to Home Invoice 1172 Tuesday night time 34-18, with a large contingent of opponents arguing it doesn’t go far sufficient to guard public entry.
The Normal Meeting hurriedly handed a invoice on the ultimate day of final yr’s legislative session guaranteeing public fishing and looking rights after a property proprietor alongside the Higher Flint River had received a lawsuit searching for to ban public fishing alongside his stretch of the river.
After the laws took impact final July, some waterfront property house owners raised issues over a provision that declared Georgia residents’ proper to make use of the state’s waterways below the “public belief doctrine.”
Home Invoice 1172 addressed property house owners’ fears by eradicating that provision. However the laws nonetheless retains its underlying objective of guaranteeing Georgians’ proper to hunt and fish in navigable waterways, Sen. Sam Watson, R-Moultrie, who carried the invoice within the Senate, instructed his colleagues earlier than the vote.
“We’re attempting to tread the needle right here to proceed to permit passage, looking, and fishing,” he mentioned.
However Sen. Elena Mother or father, D-Atlanta, mentioned taking away the general public belief doctrine means Georgians is not going to be assured the best to swim or wade within the state’s rivers and streams, together with the best to face on a riverbank and forged a fishing line. Waterfront property house owners additionally will be capable to prohibit scientific analysis within the state’s waterways.
“It’s very practically inconceivable to do these actions with out touching the stream mattress,” she mentioned.
Mother or father mentioned the Georgia Wildlife Federation and the College of Georgia’s River Basin Middle despatched letters opposing the invoice.
Senate President Professional Tempore John Kennedy, R-Macon, mentioned the Metro Atlanta Chamber and a number of agribusiness organizations expressed assist for the measure.
Senators defeated two amendments launched Tuesday night time, together with one by Mother or father that will have restored the general public belief doctrine to the laws, drawing a cost from Kennedy that she was attempting to intestine the invoice.
A Home research committee held a number of hearings on the problem across the state final October that pit the pursuits of leisure fishers, fishing guides, and paddlers towards these of farmers and waterfront property house owners.
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