Delay to Enactment Date of N.H. Shoreland Protection Act Ammendment?

According to an article in the Laconia Citizen, the enactment date of a long-heralded (by environmentalists, anyway) enhancement to the state’s Shoreland Protection Act may be pushed back from April 1 to July 1 if an amendment before the state Senate passes.

The amendment was proposed after waterfront landowners and builders were worried that the sate Department of Environmental Services (DES) is still finalizing specific details of the new Shoreland Protection Act with April 1 just around the corner, the Citizen reported.

Naturally, this delay most radically impacts Lake Winnipesaukee, the state’s largest lake with approximately 288 miles of shoreline and officially 253 islands (local lore says there is an island for every day of the year if you include some rocky “up-croppings”).

As I have mentioned previously on this blog, my family has owned a place on one of Winnipesaukee’s islands for decades and I have been spending summer weekends there my entire life. We have kept our place largely the same as it was when my family ran the property as a parent’s camp, only cutting down trees when they were dead or posed a significant safety or property damage threat and allowing the wild berry bushes and other natural trees and plants that propagate the shoreline to grow at will.

Unfortunately, far too many summer cabins have been demolished and replaced by large mansion-like homes. To exacerbate problems, the property owners around the lake have clear cut or significantly reduced the natural plant and tree growth in exchange for wide swaths of lawns and beaches.

These actions have made a tougher Shoreland Protection Act a necessity in order to maintain the habitats that support families of loons and other aquatic species. Fortunately, the New Hampshire legislature stepped up and revised the act, closing several loopholes and requiring a state permit for all construction work done within 250 feet of a shoreline. Here and here are links to discussion forums relating to the act.

It is unfortunate that the legislature is now considering pushing the start date back to July 1 although the landowners and builders have legitimate concerns. They cannot reasonably be expected to comply with a law that’s parameters have not been finalized less than two weeks before it was to be implemented. Perhaps the real question that needs some investigating is why didn’t DES finalize the rules sooner?