Tag Archives: Suzanne Welander

Georgia House Navigable Streams Study Committee 2024-08-15

Update 2024-09-25: Georgia House Navigable Streams Committee in Nahunta 2024-10-11.

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]
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

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]
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

Right to Clean Water policy by Georgia Water Coalition 2022-11-09

At its annual Fall meeting, the Georgia Water Coalition members unanimously adopted this Right to Clean Water (RTCW) policy:

Georgia should adopt a constitutional amendment to the state Bill of Rights establishing that each person has an inherent and inalienable constitutional right to clean and healthy air, soil, and surface and underground water, to support substantial interests, including human health, safety and welfare, native fish and wildlife, conservation of natural resources, outdoor recreation, and aesthetic values throughout the State.

[Georgia RTCW Logo]
Georgia RTCW Logo

This new policy will be visible online among some other new ones when the 2023 GWC Report appears among the earlier policy documents.

What does this mean? Continue reading

Book: Canoeing and Kayaking Georgia, Third Edition 2022-06-30

The Third Edition of Canoeing and Kayaking Georgia. is finally out, after perhaps-perfectionist Suzanne Welander worked on it seemingly forever, and it is worth the wait.

[Cover and inside]
Cover and inside

It is even more thorough than previous editions, with some new put-ins added Continue reading

Pictures: Alapahoochee River, GA 135 to Sullivan Launch Sasser Landing 2021-06-05

Update 2023-01-26: Pictures: Many deadfalls, shark teeth, and rapids: Alapachoochee Adventure 2022-07-09.

Bird Chamberlain and others had been suggesting it for years, and we finally did it: the Alapahoochee River from GA 135 to Sasser Landing on the Alapaha River. We paddled over many deadfalls, across the GA-FL line, past the creek of shark teeth, under old abandoned steel Beatty Bridge, through Devil Shoal, right by Turket Creek Waterfall.

[Banners, Alapahoochee River, Deadfall, Beatty Bridge, Devil Shoal, Turket Creek Waterfall]
Banners, Alapahoochee River, Deadfall, Beatty Bridge, Devil Shoal, Turket Creek Waterfall

Many thanks to Bobby McKenzie for organizing this expedition, to the WWALS Outings Committee for planning it, and to all who paddled, including Suzanne Welander, author of Canoeing and Kayaking Georgia, who came down from Atlanta for this outing. Continue reading