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The Hedgehog
03-10-2006, 09:36 AM
There are two bills currently proposed before your state legislature that may have an effect on the future of your boating on Alabama lakes. One of them, SB 487, passed unanimously out of committee yesterday and is headed to the whole Senate for a vote. We are concerned about the precedent of these bills placing limits on boating.

SB 487 and HB 756 are currently identical bills. They “prohibit the use of residence boats, recreational vessels longer than 30'6”, or recreational vessels with engines in excess of 500 HP in … Lake Harris, Jordan Lake, Lay Lake, Logan Martin Lake, Martin Lake, Mitchell Lake, Neely Henry Lake, Smith Lake, and Weiss Lake.”

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed SB 487 with a vote of 10-0. The bill is now headed to the full Senate, which could vote on it as early as next Tuesday. If it passes there, it heads over to the House for their consideration. Local lawmakers need to hear from their constituents. We'd like to encourage you to contact your Senator and Representatives NOW and let them know how you feel about these bills.

Folks this is kind of serious. Although this primarily deals with smaller lakes (10,000 acres and down), Lake Martin is huge and home to many 30+ foot boats with over 1000hp. Plus trends like this have nasty implications.

Carl C
03-10-2006, 10:25 AM
Are the water cops gonna carry portable prop mounted dynos? Sounds like that part of the bill is unenforceable which makes the whole thing flawed.

The Hedgehog
03-10-2006, 10:43 AM
Are the water cops gonna carry portable prop mounted dynos? Sounds like that part of the bill is unenforceable which makes the whole thing flawed.

My boat only has a 415hp Mercruiser. I am not sure what that special airfilter with the belts does!

goatee
03-10-2006, 12:08 PM
it is true carl, it is flawed, and there are obviously 101 different ways to contest
these rules but,,if it passes,, it will only set a precedent.

i hunt. and there are many animals to hunt, and many ways to hunt them.
some i dont agree with, some i do. and when the anti's come looking to ban a certain type of hunt, i always think to myself "this could be me next".


this must be stopped.

2biguns
03-10-2006, 03:27 PM
The bill is real and is typical of the Alabama legislature which, in my humble opinion, is made up of a bunch of whores who follow the money (oops, if taken as a political statement I issue my apologies to all).
Big money lakeside property owners who don't like big waves on their lake will push this bill. Skip and Buffy want to be able to sit on their dock and sip their manhattans and not be bothered by those pesky go-fast boats or have waves hit their docks and cause them to spill their drinks.
Smith Lake is over 21,000 acres--plenty big to handle 30 foot boats and also plenty big to accomodate house boats, which would be outlawed by this legislation.
I have always assumed that my MPI 350's are abound 260 horsepower each. Does that mean that my combined 520 horsepower make my very slow boat illegal?

2biguns
03-11-2006, 05:02 PM
Here's an article that appeared in the Birmingham News this morning.
Bullsh*t Bullsh*t Bullsh*t
This law would make it a CRIME for me to take my wife and 2 year old daughter for a ride in our 280SS Formula (the way I figure it, I"m running a pair of 260 hp engines so 520 hp is illegal). My "sewage" system is a pumpout system that I could not dump in the lake if I wanted. The only sewage I dump in Smith Lake is when I pee off the back of the boat which has nothing to do with the size of the engine or the length!
I would bet you a dollar that Senator Dial has 10 prime lots promised to him if this thing passed. Since when should the Alabama Legislature care what a bunch of Georgia developers or former Atlanta residents want?
BEWARE: THIS STARTED IN GEORGIA AND IS TAKING OVER. BIG MONEY IS CALLING THE SHOTS.
Here's the article:
Bill would ban big boats
Water pollution, crowding of lakes cited as reasons
Saturday, March 11, 2006
MIKE BOLTON
News staff writer
A bill before the Alabama Legislature that would ban all houseboats and many sailboats from nine popular lakes has some boat owners and marina operators up in arms.
The bill sponsored by Sen. Gerald Dial, D-Lineville, has cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Agriculture and Forestry Committee. It could come to a vote before the full Senate as early as Tuesday.
Should the bill become law, it would ban houseboats and other boats, such as sailboats and pontoon boats, that are longer than 30 feet 6 inches. The ban would also include boats with motors of more than 500 horsepower. That could end boat drag racing events on the lakes.
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The lakes affected are Weiss, Neely Henry, Logan Martin, Lay, Mitchell, Jordan, Harris, Martin and Smith.
Dial said he sponsored the bill after meeting with Georgia developers who requested such a ban before they would begin development on Lake Harris, which also is known as Lake Wedowee. The lake is in Dial's district.
Dial said many of the residents of Lake Wedowee are former residents of the Atlanta area who moved to Wedowee near Alabama's eastern border because they were tired of crowded Georgia lakes.
He said Lake Wedowee has no boats that would be banned, and the bill is intended to make sure the lake stays that way.
Dial said he added other lakes on non-navigable waterways to the bill because he believes larger boats are contributing to pollution of the lakes by owners dumping raw sewage.
The bill is backed by Alabama Power Co., which maintains the lakes. Willard Bowers, Alabama Power's vice president of environmental affairs, said Friday that the company supports the bill because it doesn't want any of its lakes to become like Lake Lanier in Georgia. That lake has more than 1,000 large boats. The bill is patterned after a Georgia law that prohibits larger boats from several lakes, Bowers said.
Bowers said he does have some problems with the bill as it is written. He said he would like to see sailboats excluded. He also would like some thought given to exempting houseboats that are already on the lakes and have self-contained sewage systems.
Joe Wilkerson, who owns Coosa Island Marina on Lake Logan Martin, says Dial's explanation about sewage dumping doesn't hold. He says Alabama law prohibits the dumping of raw sewage from boats.
He said many marina owners across Alabama, including himself, have installed sewage stations that allow larger boats to pump out their sewage rather than dump it in the water.
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"There are three sewage stations just on this one little island on Lake Logan Martin," Wilkerson said. "There are sewage pump-out stations all up and down this lake."
Records from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management show that 58 sewage pump-out stations are located on inland bodies of water in Alabama, including eight on Logan Martin.
ADEM provides grants that pay for 75 percent of the costs for installing the pump-out stations at marinas, said ADEM spokesman Jerome Hand.
Wilkerson said that the bill would affect more than 200 boats on Logan Martin alone. Bowers said he believes the number is closer to 100.
Don Urso, who has lived on a 72-foot houseboat on Lake Logan Martin for 15 years, said the bill caught him off guard.
"That would mean I would have to either sell my boat or move it to another lake where houseboats are allowed," he said. "Who would want to buy it if you can't put it anywhere? Where would I move to if I can't put it anywhere around here? This thing is unbelievable."
Wilkerson says 32 houseboats are permanently docked at his marina and all would have to be removed if the bill becomes law.
Bowers says he has talked with several landowner associations from the various lakes and has gotten mixed reactions. He said at least two of those associations - at Lakes Wedowee and Martin - support the bill.
Efforts to reach representatives of those lake associations were unsuccessful.