The" Dirty Dozen"

Not sure where this should be posted but I thought I would try here.
If you are a conservationist or not these Bills being proposed by the NH House and one from the Senate may be interesting to you.
SB 217 relates to Cannon mt.
The rest of the dozen relate to public access to private property, control over Commisions and Change use taxes,etc.
I do not have an opinion, I am only letting people know what is coming up in the Conservation Field. YOU LOOK , YOU DECIDE. they can be found below.

Conservation NH has compiled a list of what this organization regards as the "dirty dozen" anti-conservation bills being considered in the state legislature. This list, with accompanying discussion, also provides useful links to the legislation itself: http://conservationnh.org/water/a-n...gislature-kill-the-dirty-dozen-bills-of-2012/

At least one of these bills is mischaracterized:

HB 514 – To Pre-empt Public Access to Un-posted Private Lands

This bill would prohibit entry by anyone to private land for virtually any purpose without the written consent of the landowner.

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http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2012/HB0514.html

HOUSE BILL 514
This bill prohibits certain entry on private property for data gathering without a warrant or the written consent of the landowner.

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What this bill and a similar bill do is prevent DES, Northern Pass, etc. from gathering data on private property without the owner's consent and then using it against the owner. It says nothing about hiking, hunting, etc. So it is anti-government rather than anti-public. You still may not like it, but I'm suspicious about an organization that lies about something so easily checked.

What do you suppose "bill prohibits certain entry on private property for data gathering" actually means? Could being on private property for the purposes of determining whether there's a deer of legal size and sex to harvest be construed as subject to this bill?

Maybe rather than focusing upon the process of data gathering, the bill's authors should focus on the outcomes of data gathering. In other words - such information could not be used unless it could be demonstrated that it was obtained/gathered with the prior knowledge of the property owner.

RoySwkr said:

At least one of these bills is mischaracterized:

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Their description of SB217 is also mischaracterized:

This bill would change the name of Franconia Notch State Park to Franconia Notch Veterans’ Memorial State Park, require the Department of Resources and Economic Development to solicit bids from private entities to lease Cannon Mountain ski area, and require DRED to develop a plan for construction of a veterans’ memorial and other specific modifications at the Park.

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SB217 would:

• Change the name of Franconia Notch State Park to Franconia Notch Veterans’ Memorial State Park
• Require DRED to request information from potential entities interested in leasing Cannon Mountain ski area
• Start the process for building a Veterans Memorial
• Develop two designated hiking routes on the ski area
• Require DRED to fix erosion and remove waste from Mittersill

Bold added for the part Conservation NH completely ignored. One would think a group that's focussed on "improving the environment and conserving natural resources" would *support* such a provision.

Kevin Rooney said:

What do you suppose "bill prohibits certain entry on private property for data gathering" actually means? Could being on private property for the purposes of determining whether there's a deer of legal size and sex to harvest be construed as subject to this bill?

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Heck, even taking a picture fits the defintion of data gathering.

Or how about checking for toxic dumping of fraking fluids on a drilling site?... ummm.

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Kevin Rooney said:

Maybe rather than focusing upon the process of data gathering, the bill's authors should focus on the outcomes of data gathering. In other words - such information could not be used unless it could be demonstrated that it was obtained/gathered with the prior knowledge of the property owner.

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That's in there:

II. No information gathered without permission shall be recorded, made public, or used for studies or grants.

III. Information gathered with permission may only be used for the purpose stated in the notification.

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Right now you can post your land to keep everyone off including data-gatherers. If the bill passes, the public can still enter as long as they don't collect data so it sounds like it's a plus for public access.

this bill is pretty specific about not granting access rights that were not already in place. If it is posted, you are still not welcome. The curious bit I see is that it makes all data collected in the past illegal to share print or anything else unless you have written permission in hand. Almost all hiking maps have been made using "data collected on private property". I will bet that all the old AMC maps, USGS maps, and privately produced maps such as those that are available at the Gilford Library (the Belknap map by Dave Roberts, etc.) will be ILLEGAL.

paul ron said:

Or how about checking for toxic dumping of fraking fluids on a drilling site?... ummm.

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How about that? No can't be related.

Trail Bandit said:

I will bet that all the old AMC maps, USGS maps, and privately produced maps such as those that are available at the Gilford Library (the Belknap map by Dave Roberts, etc.) will be ILLEGAL.

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To quote the great Inigo Montoya:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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From a more practical point of view, this bill doesn't have an enforcement clause. There may be a section elsewhere in the code that specifies penalties for "any unlawful act under this title" - can someone point that out? If it exists, what state authorities have responsibility for enforcement? I'm not even sure whether the bill is trying to create a civil cause of action.

Trail Bandit said:

Almost all hiking maps have been made using "data collected on private property". I will bet that all the old AMC maps, USGS maps, and privately produced maps such as those that are available at the Gilford Library (the Belknap map by Dave Roberts, etc.) will be ILLEGAL.

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The US Constitution prohibits ex-post-facto laws so you can't be prosecuted for things that weren't illegal when you did them. Hence existing stuff should be legal as long as you don't create new maps.

Going forward, the USGS probably makes their maps without entering most of the property shown on it, and maps in many hiking guides are edited from base maps rather than field-collected by GPS.

I think this bill was not aimed at TB but rather to prevent environmental studies by Northern Pass or the finding of endangered species which would limit property uses. I don't like this bill, but I prefer it to the alternative of posting the property which forbids all use not just data collecting. And I agree with PB that it probably won't become law as written.