30.74 Additional functions of department.

(1) Boating safety programs.

(a) The department shall establish a program of comprehensive courses on boating safety and operation. These courses shall be offered in cooperation with schools, including tribal schools, as defined in s. 115.001 (15m), private clubs and organizations, and may be offered by the department in areas where requested and where other sponsorship is unavailable. The department shall issue certificates to persons 10 years of age or older successfully completing such courses. The department shall prescribe the course content and the form of the certificate.

(am) The department may promulgate rules to establish minimum standards and procedures for the instruction given under s. 30.625 (1) (a).

(b) The department by rule shall set the instruction fee for the course. A person conducting a course or giving instruction under this subsection shall collect the instruction fee from each person who receives instruction. The department may determine the portion of this fee, which may not exceed 50 percent, that the person may retain to defray expenses incurred by the person in conducting the course or giving the instruction. The person shall remit the remainder of the fee or, if nothing is retained, the entire fee to the department. The department shall issue a duplicate certificate of accomplishment to a person who is entitled to a duplicate certificate of accomplishment and who pays a fee of $2.75.

(bn) A certificate issued to a person under this subsection is valid for life unless revoked by a court under s. 30.80 (2m) or (6) (e) or 938.343 (5).

(c) A valid certificate issued by another state, as defined in s. 115.46 (2) (f), or a province of Canada that is held by a person will be honored if the course content substantially meets that established by the department.

(d) The department shall also prepare and disseminate information on water safety to the public, including the informational pamphlets specified in s. 30.52 (5) (a) 4. and (b) 3.

(2) Uniform navigation aids.

(a) The department by rule shall establish uniform marking of the water areas of this state through the placement of aids to navigation and regulatory markers. These rules shall establish a marking system compatible with the system of aids to navigation prescribed by the U.S. coast guard and shall give due regard to the system of uniform waterway markers approved by the advisory panel of state officials to the merchant marine council, U.S. coast guard. No municipality or person may mark the waters of this state in any manner in conflict with the marking system prescribed by the department. Any regulatory marker or aid to navigation that does not comply with this marking system is considered an unlawful obstruction to navigable waters and may be removed in accordance with law. The department may not prohibit the placement of a regulatory marker or an aid to navigation if it complies with this marking system and if it is being placed pursuant to an ordinance that has been enacted in compliance with s. 30.77.

(b) For purposes of this section “aids to navigation" means buoys, beacons and other fixed objects in the water which are used to mark obstructions to navigation or to direct navigation through safe channels; “regulatory markers" means any anchored or fixed marker in the water or anchored platform on the surface of the water, other than aids to navigation, and shall include but not be limited to bathing beach markers, speed zone markers, information markers, mooring buoys, fishing buoys and restricted activity area markers.

(3) Enforcement. The department shall assist in the enforcement of ss. 30.50 to 30.80 and in connection therewith maintain patrol boats and operate such patrol boats at such times and places as the department deems necessary in the interest of boating safety and the effective enforcement of boating laws.

History: 1973 c. 302; 1983 a. 27 s. 2202 (38); 1995 a. 152; 1997 a. 198; 1999 a. 9; 2005 a. 356 ss. 1e, 10g, 10r; 2007 a. 20; 2009 a. 302; 2015 a. 89.