Tag Archives: James Burchett

Georgia House Navigable Streams Study Committee 2024-08-15

Update 2024-08-15: The livestream is here:
https://www.legis.ga.gov/schedule/house/AQIARgAAAxpEc5CqZhHNm8gAqgAvxFoJAGeQLC1kSDdIixjC7EHFmfIAAAJaYAAAANZQGGA2fqFiaHBHrewZqJ2eET4ABFxyjiQAAAAuAAADGkRzkKpmEc2byACqACGGA2fEWgMAZ5AsLWRIN0iLGMLsQcWZ8gAAAlpgAAAA

A new Georgia House Study Committee was established March 28, 2024, on the fraught issue of navigability of waterways: HOUSE STUDY COMMITTEE ON NAVIGABLE STREAMS AND RELATED MATTERS.

Maybe you’d like to contact your statehouse member before the meeting, since there seems to be no opportunity for public input during the meeting.

New Navigable Streams Georgia House Studay Committee 2024-08-15: Ownership, Property Rights, Recreation, Economy

About the House Study Committee on Navigable Streams and Related Matters

Continue reading →

Help keep paddle access to Georgia rivers 2024-07-22

Update 2024-08-09: Georgia House Navigable Streams Study Committee 2024-08-15.

The Georgia legislature is trying to define which creeks and rivers are navigable. They are using an antique law to do so.

You can help keep Georgia rivers and creeks navigable by logging your river trips here:
https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/32bc9531a62e4c83971b162a58eb25f2

The goal of this mapping project is to document the upstream extent of recreational descents on as many Georgia rivers as possible. Paddlers documenting their descents through this survey could help protect access to streams for generations to come. We encourage paddlers to submit their earliest and farthest upstream descent on as many rivers as possible.

Help keep paddle access to Georgia rivers, Contact your statehouse members, Record your paddle outings

Maybe you’d also like to explain to the Georgia statehouse that the 1863 definition of navigable is outdated: “is capable of transporting boats loaded with freight in the regular course of trade either for the whole or a part of the year.”

Nowadays we fish, paddle, and motor in forms of recreational commerce that were not common in 1863.

Here is one way to contact your Georgia state legislators:
https://action.outdooralliance.org/a/protect-the-publics-right-to-paddle-in-georgia_7_24 Continue reading →

Atkinson County, GA, resolution for the Okefenokee Swamp against the strip mine 2024-03-14

Thanks to the Atkinson County Commissioners for passing this resolution unanimously Thursday evening. We will get a signed copy soon.

Atkinson County Commission and Resolution for the Okefenokee Swamp against the Twin Pines Minerals Strip Mine

Shirley Kokidko, who lives in Pearson, the county seat, said a few words. I gave the shortest speech ever, “We could speak for half an hour. But if the Okefenokee Swamp isn’t worth protecting, what is?”

As they voted, they said things such as, “this would affect our fishing.”

A Commissioner sought me out in the parking lot afterwards to remark, “This is our heritage, our way of life.”

After Berrien County, plus the city of Nashville, this is the second county on the Alapaha River to pass such a resolution.

It is the ~~fifth~~ sixth such resolution in Georgia state Senate District 8, after Valdosta, Ware County and Waycross, Clinch, and Echols Counties. Maybe Senator Russ Goodman will be interested in that.

Berrien County and the city of Nashville are in Continue reading →

Navigability in HB 1397 in GA House Natural Resources & Environment Quality Subcommittee 2024-02-26

Update 2024-03-08: A 19th-century navigable definition does not work for 21st-century river economies 2024-02-29.

I watched it so you don’t have to, Monday’s meeting of the Georgia Natural Resources & Environment Environmental Quality Subcommittee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnl5fJP5ptM&t=1425s

The subcommittee is meeting again at 1PM today, February 28, 2024, with HB 1397 as the only thing on the agenda, and Rep. John Corbett again chairing.
https://www.house.ga.gov/Documents/Agendas/Natural%20Resources/January%2024,%202011%2027.pdf

See also the input I sent the legislators yesterday, Navigable stream additions to GA HB 1397 2024-02-27.

This is not a transcript. Except where I use quotation marks, it is a paraphrase of what I found to be the important points of the Monday subcommittee meeting.

Rep. James Burchett, Navigability in HB 1397 in GA House Natural Resources & Environment Quality Subcommittee 2024-02-26

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. James Burchett (District 176, Waycross) said he was concerned about people boating on oxbows and creeks onto private property, so the bill definitely did not include tributaries as navigable. He worries that currently the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GA-DNR) is in a difficult position of having to decide matters of law.

Burchett said that he constructed the list Continue reading →

Navigable stream additions to GA HB 1397 2024-02-27

Update 2024-02-28: Navigability in HB 1397 in GA House Natural Resources & Environment Quality Subcommittee 2024-02-26.

Sent this morning.

Navigable stream additions to GA HB 1397 –WWALS 2024-02-27

February 27, 2024

To: Cc:

Rep. James Burchett (176), james.burchett@house.ga.gov

Rep. John Lahood (175), john.lahood@house.ga.gov,

Rep. Dexter Sharper (177), dexter.sharper@house.ga.gov,

Rep. John Corbett (174), john.corbett@house.ga.gov ,

Rep. Chas Cannon (172), chas.cannon@house.ga.gov,

Rep. Penny Houston (170), penny.houston@house.ga.gov,

Rep. Darlene Taylor (173), darlene.taylor@house.ga.gov,

Rep. Clay Pirkle (169), clay.pirkle@house.ga.gov,

Rep. Leesa Hagan (156), leesa.hagan@house.ga.gov,

Rep. Bill Yearta (152), bill.yearta@house.ga.gov,

Rep. Noel Williams (148), noel.williams@house.ga.gov,

Rep. Patty Bentley (150), patty.bentley@house.ga.gov

Re: Navigable stream additions to HB 1397

Rep. Burchett,

You are invited to the Mayor and Chairman’s Paddle on the Withlacoochee River just west of Valdosta, this Saturday, March 2, 2024. Continue reading →

All WWALS water trails navigable according to GA HB 1397 2024-02-22

Update 2024-02-27: Navigable stream additions to GA HB 1397 2024-02-27.

Update 2024-02-25: Need to add Sugar Creek, as well as Cat Creek and Franks Creek.

Following up on the December 2023 report of the Fishing Rights Study Committee, that Committee’s Chair, Rep. Burchett of Waycross, who is also the House Majority Whip, this Thursday introduced HB 1397, which defines navigable streams in Georgia.

Warrior Creek, Okapilco Creek, Deep Creek, Bird Wing Run

The bill’s list appears to include all of Georgia parts of the WWALS water trails, plus some creeks and an upstream reach of the Alapaha River.

However, the entire Alapahoochee River is missing, https://wwals.net/maps/alapaha-water-trail/arwt-map/arwt-points/#ga-376-bridge, as is the East Fork of the Suwannee River in the Okefenokee Swamp. The North Fork of the Suwannee River is missing, but it’s so overgrown that’s not surprising.

Considering the inclusion of Okapilco Creek, the bill needs to add Sugar Creek below Baytree Road, which is a nice urban creek with a beach and shoals, https://wwals.net/?p=56221 with the WaterGoat trash trap, https://wwals.net/?p=63876 and will be used this coming Saturday, March 2, as the early takeout for the Mayor and Chairman’s Paddle. https://wwals.net/?p=64095

Similarly, the bill could add add Cat Creek below GA 37 and Franks Creek below GA 122. That would help with finding and fixing E. coli problems seen at bridges on those creeks. WWALS has already started investigating those creek problems and has applied for a testing grant. https://wwals.net/?p=58982

These are the bill’s items in the Suwannee River Basin. If I’ve missed any, somebody let me know. Continue reading →

Okefenokee bills, Georgia legislature 2024-02-21

As crossover day approaches in the Georgia legislature, events are moving faster about the proposed strip mine too near the Okefenokee Swamp.

In addition to a mining prohibition bill that has been in the legislature since last year, now there is a fine, draft permits, and two new bills, for increased criminal penalties, and for a mining moratorium (with a big catch).

None of these are likely to stop this specific “demonstration” mine, but some of them could prevent any further such mines.

Crossover day is the day by which a bill has to have been passed by one house to get into the other house. It’s February 29 this year, Thursday of next week.

Okefenokee NationaGl Wildlife Refuge: 15 miles
Map courtesy Prof. Can Denizman and students, Valdosta State University.

Draft Permits

As previously mentioned, On February 9, 2024, GA-EPD published draft permits (surface mining, water withdrawal, and air quality). for the applications by Twin Pines Minerals, LLC (TPM) to strip mine for titanium dioxide (TiO2) within three miles of the Okefenokee Swamp, between Moniac and St. George, Georgia. You have until April 9 to comment, and there is a public online meeting on March 5.

Details here:
https://wwals.net/?p=64142

Consent Orders

Back in January, I was told by a former state legislator that these miners be very careful to avoid infractions, because they had a lot of money riding on their venture. A week later, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) issued a Consent Order on TPM, saying back in 2018 the miners had drilled soil samples without a professional geologist or engineer supervising, as required by state law, and they also failed to provide a letter of credit or a performance bond. TPM “voluntarily” agreed to pay a tiny fine of $20,000. For more details, see Russ Bynum, AP, 24 January 2024, Company seeking to mine near Okefenokee will pay $20,000 to settle environmental violation claims.

This is not the first time TPM has been under a Consent Order. Continue reading →

Fishing Access in Georgia: House Committee Report 2023-12-01

Update 2024-02-28: Navigability in HB 1397 in GA House Natural Resources & Environment Quality Subcommittee 2024-02-26.

Here is the Final Report with Recommendations after four public input meetings and a decision meeting of the Georgia House Study Committee on Fishing Access to Freshwater Resources.

Chair Rep. James Burchett and GA House Fishing Access Study Committee 2023-11-30, plus fishing, fish, boating, and trash

Basically, they want to preserve both fishing rights (and private property rights) while preserving boating right of passage. The Study Committee found right of passage tied to navigability, so its key recommendations are to determine and delineate which parts of which rivers and streams are navigable.

If you know Committee Chair Rep. James Burchett or any of the committee members, please contact them asking for maximum navigability while preserving private property rights. Or contact your Georgia state house member.
http://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/ Continue reading →

Fishing, boating passage, and navigability in Georgia waters 2023-10-12

Update 2023-12-31: Fishing Access in Georgia: House Committee Report 2023-12-01.

What waterways are navigable? How does navigability apply to fishing rights and private ownership of waterways? What about right of passage? How does the Georgia state constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish apply? And what about GA-DNR boat ramps?

Access, Navigable, Boat Ramps

This controversy started with a lawsuit about the Flint River, but it has already spread to other rivers and creeks, and sooner or later will affect the Suwannee River Basin.

The Chair of the Georgia House Study Committee on the subject is Rep. James Burchett, District 176, which includes southwest Coffee, Atkinson, Lanier, and northeast Lowndes Counties, all in the Suwannee River Basin. Plus he is the County Attorney for Brooks County.

If you know him, maybe you’d like to talk to him about the importance of river passage and public fishing rights. As he is reported to have said, “The intention is to find clarity. The property owners and fishermen all want to know, where can we fish and where can we not?”