A proposal to reduce the legal burden for proving private ownership of coastal marshlands first granted to Georgia settlers centuries ago was advanced Tuesday by a state House committee.
The House Judiciary Committee voted 6-5 to approve House Bill 370 during a meeting streamed online from the state Capitol in Atlanta, sending it to the full House. Prior versions of the proposal in 2022 and last year failed to get a vote on the House floor.
Conservation groups are opposing the measure, saying it would put thousands of acres of salt marsh currently considered public land at risk of being seized by people who don’t rightly own it.
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Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, and several coastal lawmakers sponsoring the bill say it will encourage restoration of salt marsh that was long ago drained or damaged by farming and other uses.
“For 200 years, these rice farms and other manmade alterations in Georgia’s marshlands have not repaired themselves,” said Reeves, the Judiciary Committee’s vice chair. “Mother nature needs help to restore those marshlands. And this is the vehicle to do it.”
The vast majority of Georgia’s 400,000 acres of coastal marshland is owned by the state and protected from development. State officials estimate about 36,000 acres are privately owned through titles granted by England’s king or Georgia’s post-American Revolution governors during the 1700s and early 1800s.
Critics say the legal process for a landholder to trace ownership to one of these so-called “crown grants” is too cumbersome and can take a decade or longer. The state attorney general’s office handles those cases now and requires evidence of continuous ownership from the original centuries-old grant to the present.
The measure before House lawmakers would establish a streamlined alternative for those who, if granted their claim of ownership, agree to keep their marsh in conservation. Owners would be allowed to…
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