A BILL to amend and reenact §20-1-10 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to wildlife management areas; revising areas subject to property management requirements; altering reporting requirements; establishing requirements of land use for recreational hunting and shooting; preserving net habitat for hunting and shooting; and establishing reporting requirements for the division of natural resources.

That §20-1-10 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:

§20-1-10. Property management.
(a) The department division shall maintain at all times an accurate record of all of its lands wildlife management areas under its ownership, interests in lands, buildings, structures, equipment and other tangible properties and assets. Such The record shall reflect the location, utility, condition and estimated value of all such properties and assets. The department division shall provide for the maintenance, preservation and custody of all such properties and assets, and when any item or items thereof become obsolete or are no longer needed, the department division shall report thereon to the Department of Finance and Administration Public Lands Corporation for disposition thereof.
(b) The Director shall select and designate a competent and qualified person as department division property officer, who shall be responsible for the department's division's records relating to its properties and assets and for the maintenance, preservation, custody and disposition of all such properties and assets as herein provided.
(c) Subject to valid existing rights, division owned wildlife management area lands shall be open to access and use for recreational hunting and shooting except as limited by the division for reasons of public safety, fish and wildlife management or homeland security or as otherwise limited by law.
(d) The division shall exercise its authority consistent with subsection (c) to support, promote and enhance recreational hunting and shooting opportunities, to the extent authorized by statute. The division shall give preference to hunting and shooting over other uses of division owned wildlife management area lands.
(e) Division land management decisions and actions may not result in a net loss of habitat land acreage available for hunting and shooting opportunities on division owned wildlife management area lands that exists on the effective date of this section.
(f) On or before the first day of December, the division shall submit an annual report to the Governor and to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance, including the following:
(1) The acreage administered by the division that has been closed during the previous year to recreational hunting and the reasons for the closures; and
(2) The acreage administered by the division that, in order to comply with the provisions of subsection (e) was opened to recreational hunting to compensate for that acreage.