Bill Text - HB281 (2019)

(New Title) relative to flow devices designed to control beaver damming and minimize the risk of flooding behind an existing beaver dam.


Revision: Dec. 3, 2019, 10:08 a.m.

CHAPTER 125

HB 281 - FINAL VERSION

 

14Feb2019... 0214h

2019 SESSION

19-0572

04/08

 

HOUSE BILL 281

 

AN ACT relative to flow devices designed to control beaver damming and minimize the risk of flooding behind an existing beaver dam.

 

SPONSORS: Rep. Myler, Merr. 10; Rep. Wallner, Merr. 10

 

COMMITTEE: Fish and Game and Marine Resources

 

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AMENDED ANALYSIS

 

This bill allows for the installation of flow devices to discourage beaver damming and to minimize the risk of flooding behind an existing beaver dam.

 

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Explanation: Matter added to current law appears in bold italics.

Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]

Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.

14Feb2019... 0214h 19-0572

04/08

 

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

 

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Nineteen

 

AN ACT relative to flow devices designed to control beaver damming and minimize the risk of flooding behind an existing beaver dam.

 

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:

 

125:1  Protection of Beaver; Flow Devices.  Amend RSA 210:9, II and II-a to read as follows:

II.  Notwithstanding paragraph I or any other provision of law or rule [of the executive director or the department of environmental services], a landowner, the landowner's agent, or any town or municipal or state official or employee, may destroy beaver, remove beaver dams, or install [beaver pipes or beaver fences] one or more flow devices on property under their control to protect property, public highways, or bridges from damage or submersion.  The landowner or property owner shall be responsible for maintaining the flow device.  Complete or partial dam removal or the installation or removal of a flow device shall be allowed without a permit under RSA 482-A if machinery does not enter the water and filling or dredging in or adjacent to surface water, wetlands, or their banks does not occur[. Removal] and shall be done in a gradual manner that does not allow a sudden release of impounded water so as to cause erosion, siltation, or a safety hazard downstream.

II-a.  For purposes of paragraph II, the term ["beaver pipes" means no more than 3 temporary structures with the widest dimension no larger than 15 inches that is placed in a beaver dam to allow water passage to maintain a specific water surface elevation, and the term "beaver fences" means posts and fencing installed at culverts in such a manner as to either encourage or discourage beaver damming against the fence] "flow device" means one or more fence structures or other combination of fencing and piping used to discourage beaver damming, maintain water flow through an existing beaver dam, or minimize the risk of flooding by preventing the further impoundment of water behind a beaver dam.

125:2  Effective Date.  This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.

 

Approved: June 25, 2019

Effective Date: August 24, 2019