UNDATED (KELO AM) Some South Dakota sportsmen have started an 11th hour online petition drive to try to pressure change to compromise legislation on non-meandered waters.
The State Legislature will hold a special session in Pierre starting June 12.
Ryan Beasley claims that sportsmen really haven't been listened to by the special committee of state lawmakers putting together the compromise bill.
He says one big problem is allowing owners to partition off their non-meandered lakes, leaving only a portion for fishing and boating.
"When you section off lakes, the economic impact, you are not going to have anybody from out of state that's going to come and do that. They're not going to show up at a lake that's cordoned off."
Beasley says the compromise legislation doesn't address the specific issues the State Supreme Court ruled need to be solved
"The two questions that the Supreme Court asked the legislators to define were beneficial use and superior rights, and neither one of those questions have been answered in this current bill."
He says the beneficial use for sportsmen is fishing and boating on these non-meandered lakes, and he wants someone to tell him what the beneficial use is to the owner of flooded land.
You can read the online petition here: