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Help to Save the Okefenokee Swamp
The 438,000-acre Okefenokee Swamp is the largest blackwater wetland in North America and the site of the largest National Wildlife Refuge in the eastern United States, which offers many miles of superb paddling trails. It is the headwaters of two rivers that also offer excellent paddling opportunities: the Suwannee River that flows south into the Gulf of Mexico and the Saint Mary’s River that flows east into the Atlantic Ocean.
The Okefenokee’s rich and diverse habitats have been threatened by projects dating back as far as the 1890s, when the Suwannee Canal Company failed in its attempt to drain the swamp for the purpose of logging. Had the attempt to cut through the long sand ridge that forms the swamp’s eastern boundary been successful, irreparable damage would have been done to the swamp’s ecology and hydrology. Much later, in the 1990s, the DuPont Corporation made plans to mine sand from the ridge, but this was met with such an outcry from the public that the project was eventually abandoned. Now, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division is reviewing permits that would authorize Twin Pines Minerals LLC, an Alabama mining company, to strip mine heavy minerals from some 8,000 acres of the ridge.
With federal protections having been skirted, the decision on these permits is now in the hands of Georgia regulators. Please consider sending them a message asking that they protect the priceless Okefenokee Swamp. You can research the issue further by using the above links or by viewing the recent documentary film Sacred Waters: The Okefenokee in Peril. The website for Protect Georgia offers a convenient tool to send a message to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
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