ENROLLED
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 357
(Senators Williams, Beach, D. Hall, Miller, Sypolt, Plymale and Tucker,
original sponsors)
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[Passed March 7, 2014; in effect ninety days from passage.]
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AN ACT to repeal §19-1B-12 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as
amended; and to amend and reenact §19-1B-12a of said code, all
relating to civil and criminal penalties for violations of the
Logging Sediment Control Act pertaining to timber operations;
and establishing a violation for failure to reclaim.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §19-1B-12
of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be repealed; and that §19-1B-12a of said code be amended and
reenacted, all
to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1B. SEDIMENT CONTROL DURING COMMERCIAL TIMBER HARVESTING
OPERATIONS.
§19-1B-12a. Criminal and civil penalties.
(a) It is illegal for a person to:
(1) Conduct timbering operations, purchase timber or buy logs
for resale in this state without holding a valid license from the
Director of the Division of Forestry, as required by section four
of this article;
(2) Conduct timbering operations or sever trees for sale at a
location in this state without providing the Director of the
Division of Forestry with notice of the location where the
timbering or harvesting operations are to be conducted, as required
by section six of this article;
(3) Conduct a timbering operation in this state that is not
supervised by a certified logger who holds a valid certificate from
the Director of the Division of Forestry, as required by section
seven of this article;
(4) Continue to conduct timbering operations in violation of
a suspension or revocation order that has been issued by the
Director of the Division of Forestry or a conference panel under
section five, ten or eleven of this article; and
(5) Fail to reclaim the real property in accordance with the
best management practices set forth by the Division of Forestry and
the committee established in subsection (h), section seven of this
article.
(b) Criminal and civil penalties. -- A person that violates
this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be fined not less than $250 nor more than $500 for each violation.
In addition to fines and costs, a person or entity convicted of a
violation of this section shall pay a $500 civil penalty to the
division within sixty days. The civil penalty shall be collected by
the court in which the person is convicted and
forwarded to the
State Treasurer for deposit in the Division of Forestry Timber
Operations Enforcement Fund (3082) for use in administering the
provisions of this article.
(c) Each day that a person is in violation of this section
constitutes a separate criminal and civil offense.
(d) In addition to any other law-enforcement agencies that
have jurisdiction over criminal violations, any forester or forest
technician employed by the Division of Forestry who, as a part of
his or her official duties is authorized by the Director of the
Division of Forestry to inspect timbering operations, is authorized
to issue citations for any of the listed violations in this article
that he or she has witnessed. The limited authority granted to
employees of the Division of Forestry to issue citations to enforce
the provisions of this section does not include the power to place
any individual or person under arrest.