Bill Description: House Bill 554 would limit pest abatement on private property, requiring written permission from landowners, limit aerial abatement to emergency situations, and allow landowners to opt-out even from emergency abatement efforts.
Rating: +3
Does it violate the spirit or the letter of either the United States Constitution or the Idaho Constitution? Examples include restrictions on speech, public assembly, the press, privacy, private property, or firearms. Conversely, does it restore or uphold the protections guaranteed in the US Constitution or the Idaho Constitution?
House Bill 554 would amend Section 39-2804, Idaho Code, which lays out the powers and duties of abatement districts. The bill strikes language that claims to give the district authority “to enter upon any and all lands” for the purposes of taking “all necessary and proper steps for the control of mosquitoes and other vermin of public health and welfare importance.”
It also strikes language giving the district power to “exercise the right of eminent domain and for these purposes to condemn any necessary land or rights-of-way in accordance with general law.”
It adds a new subsection requiring the district to “obtain written permission annually from a landowner before entering or flying above the landowner's property to conduct abatement-related activities, including treating the property aerially or by ground and monitoring and surveilling the property, regardless of whether an emergency has been declared pursuant to section 39-2812, Idaho Code.”
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House Bill 554 would amend Section 39-2812, Idaho Code, to add a new subsection that says, “Aerial abatement methods shall be used within an abatement district only when the respective board of county commissioners has declared an emergency. In such cases, aerial abatement methods shall be used only to treat property within the abatement district that has not been exempted pursuant to section 39-2814, Idaho Code.”
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House Bill 554 would create Section 39-2814, Idaho Code, to recognize the right of “an individual who owns property within an abatement district” to “submit a written notice that includes the physical address of the property to the board of county commissioners for the county in which the property is located requesting that the property be exempted from any and all abatement-related activities.”
This notice will “remain in effect until the owner of the property rescinds the notice in writing.”
It requires abatement districts to “strictly adhere to the requested exemption” and allows property owners whose exemption is violated to “submit evidence of the violation to the respective board of county commissioners”; “initiate a civil action against the respective board of county commissioners and abatement district”; and receive $5,000 from the board of county commissioners for each violation plus reasonable attorney's fees and costs.
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