CHAPTER 509

ACT to amend and reenact § 28-128 of the Code of 1950,
relating to assignment of oyster planting grounds to ripa-
rian owners.

[ H 359 }

Approved April 7, 1950

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

That § 28-123 of the Code of 1950 be amended and re-
‘ted as follows:

§ 28-123. Assignments of planting grounds to riparian
ers.—Any owner of land having a waterfront thereon suitable
planting oysters, who has not had as much as one-half acre
‘round already assigned him on such front, or whose lease
terminated and is not to be renewed, may make application
planting ground to the inspector for the district in which
land lies, who shall assign to him such ground, wherever
1 owner may designate in front of his land, not exceeding
rea one-half acre, and in measurement to be not less than
fourth of an acre at its narrowest width, the same to be
surveyed, platted, marked, assigned and recorded, in all respects,
as provided for assignments to persons in the next succeeding
section. In the Rappahannock River and its tributaries, the
one-half acre hereinabove mentioned shall begin at low water
mark. For assigning to riparian owners, the surveyor shal]
receive a fee of one dollar, and the inspector a fee of fifty cents.
Such owner shall have the exclusive right to the use thereof for
the purpose aforesaid, such assignment to pass with the land to
any subsequent owner. If any portion of such water front be
assigned to a riparian claimant, which at the time is occupied
by others with oysters actually planted thereon, the person
occupying the same shall have twelve months in which to remove
such oysters.

This section, so far as the quantity of land to be assigned
to and held by riparian owners is concerned, shall not apply to
the counties of Richmond, Northampton, Northumberland and
Westmoreland, but section six of chapter two hundred and fifty-
four, acts eighteen hundred and eighty-three and eighteen hun-
dred and eighty-four, shall continue in force as to such counties,
but nothing herein contained shall be construed as authorizing
a rental of less than one dollar per acre for riparian owners in
the above-named counties of the land assigned them as such
riparian owners; provided, that nothing in such section which
restores to riparian owners in such counties one-fourth of their
respective waterfronts, suitable for planting oysters, shall be so
construed as to permit the owners of water fronts to compel
occupants of such fronts to remove their oysters from any fourth
of such shores, if the residue of the shore be already in his, the
landowner’s possession, or be unoccupied; and provided, further,
that this section shall not apply to riparian lands located in the
city of Norfolk, Virginia, or to any owner of land located in such
city, and having a waterfront.

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