This is the real deal – the Georgia legislature is now in session so you must act now!
For decades, Georgia’s paddlesports community has enjoyed the freedom to float and explore virtually all of Georgia’s rivers and streams. If the water can float a boat, we paddle it, whether from developed public access points or roadway right of ways.These streams range from raging whitewater runs in North Georgia to peaceful blackwater streams in South Georgia.
That freedom is now at risk.
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Use the form in this link to contact your state legislators and ask them to protect our freedom to float. Georgia’s 1863 definition of “navigability” should not be used to determine where boaters have the right of passage.
Background – In November 2023, a House Study Committee on Fishing Access to Freshwater Resources made recommendations to the full General Assembly to “determine and delineate the navigability of each of Georgia’s rivers and streams based on the statutory definition.” Unfortunately, that definition dates to 1863 when steamboats plied Georgia’s rivers, not canoes, kayaks, paddleboards and other small vessels. The recommendation could lead to hundreds of miles of streams being deemed non-navigable, thus allowing private landowners to restrict access to these waterways.
The right to travel by boat on even Georgia’s smallest streams was established by the Georgia Supreme Court in 1849. In neighboring North Carolina and South Carolina, state laws provide that if a stream can float a boat, the public has the right to venture down it. Contact your legislators using the link today!
The post Act Today to Preserve Your Freedom to Paddle Georgia’s Rivers and Streams appeared first on Georgia Canoeing Association.
