Ga. House Study Committee On Navigable Streams To Meet Thursday

A state House study committee tasked with determining where people have the right to boat, fish and hunt on Georgia’s streams will hold its first meeting Thursday.

The House Study Committee on Navigable Streams and Related Matters grew out of a legislative effort to name sections of some 64 streams and rivers in Georgia as navigable and thus open to the public.

HB 1397, introduced in the most recent legislative session, was highly controversial and criticized by both river user groups and property owners. Instead, legislators created a study committee to investigate the issue further.

Those opposed to the bill argue that if a stream or river is not deemed navigable, then a property owner with land on both sides of the waterway could deny passage down the waterway, essentially closing it to public use.

Locally, that has the potential of affecting Big Cedar Creek in Cave Spring. The waterway, used by paddlers for fishing and recreation for years, is not currently on the list of navigable streams.

There’s also an economic factor. Waterways like the Cartecay in North Georgia and Big Cedar Creek have spurred business investments and local revenue.

In 2020, boating and fishing were responsible for more than $1 billion in economic activity in Georgia. The state’s rivers and streams support some 70 canoe/kayak/tube outfitter businesses and countless fishing guides along with businesses ranging from convenience stores to hotels.

The study committee will examine aspects of navigable streams in this state and the issues surrounding their ownership, private and public rights of use and other related matters. It’s expected to make recommendations for proposed legislation ahead of the 2025 Georgia General Assembly session.

The meeting is set for 9 a.m. in Room 506 of the Coverdall Legislative Office Building in Atlanta. A livestream of the proceedings will be available online at Legis.Ga.Gov .

Current state law guarantees the public’s right to access all of the state’s navigable streams, but the state’s definition of “navigable” dates back to 1863 when steamboats and cotton barges were the most common vessels seen on the rivers. The definition asserts that, for a stream to be navigable, it must be capable of floating a boat loaded with freight.

Whether a stream is deemed navigable has far-reaching implications because of the state’s property laws. Along navigable streams, property lines end at the low water mark along the bank. But state law provides that landowners along non-navigable streams own the streambed to the center line.

In the 1990s, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled in two separate cases that a landowner possessing both sides of a stream can restrict the public from passing down that stream.

To date, those decisions — on Ichawaynochaway Creek in Southwest Georgia and Armuchee Creek in Northwest Georgia — represent the only two instances where the courts or the state legislature has deemed a stream non-navigable in the modern era.

No previous legislature or court ruling has definitively determined what streams in Georgia were navigable and non-navigable.