Conservationists on Tuesday celebrated the defeat of legislation that would have made it easier to raise logs submerged in four of the state's rivers.
The House voted 85-83 to reject Senate Bill 218. Sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams, R-Lyons, the bill would have allowed individuals to bid for the right to raise "deadhead" logs from the Altamaha, Flint, Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers.
Deadhead logs are primarily the remnants of old-growth pine and cypress trees that were cut decades ago upstream and floated downriver. They are highly valued for flooring and other carpentry. Environmentalists argued that the logs provide valuable fish habitat and raising them could pollute waterways with sediment.
But Rep. Greg Morris, R-Vidalia, who sponsored the bill in the House, said he fishes in those four rivers and would not support anything that would harm them.
The state previously had a similar system for harvesting the logs, but it expired in 2008.
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