Don’t look now but there is an elephant in the room. Well, it’s not a room exactly. It is our state government. And it’s not an elephant, either. It is mining our Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge which they want to pretend isn’t there and wish we would, too. Fat chance.
As we all know, the swamp has been a political tug of war over the issue of mining the swamp for titanium dioxide so the world will never have to confront the frightening prospects of running out of toothpaste whitener. To this point, the politicians have held the upper hand. A number of them own timber land and whether they do or don’t, they are the beneficiaries of political contributions from outside interests that would benefit financially from mining the area for titanium dioxide.
There is the mistaken impression that this matter was resolved when The Conservation Fund stepped in last June and paid $60 million for 8,000 acres to stop Twin Pines Minerals from mining along Trail Ridge, the ancient barrier island that makes up the Okefenokee’s eastern rim. This, while our politicians sat on their hands. Maybe some applauded the decision but most remained mute. Campaign contributions can do that.
Twin Pines Minerals was a disaster in the making. The company was delinquent in paying property taxes, faced several lawsuits for unpaid services as well as defaulting on loans as our intrepid public servants looked the other way.
Actually, they did more than that. For the past four years, Gov. Brian Kemp and legislative leaders have blocked every effort to consider passage of the Okefenokee Protection Act, first introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives by Rep. Darlene Taylor, R-Thomasville.
The Act, which would prohibit the issuance of mining permits on Trail Ridge had nearly 100 bipartisan cosponsors from all parts of the state. That was more than enough to win passage. But to no avail. It sat in the Natural Resources & Environment and its chair, Lynne Smith, R-Newnan, never to see the light of day. Smith was obviously just a puppet doing the leadership’s bidding. She didn’t even have the good grace to respond to calls and emails from you explaining her actions.
Then there is the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (insert oxymoron here) which received approximately 80,000 overwhelmingly negative comments during public comment periods and did nothing. More than a quarter million comments at state and federal levels have been received since the project was first proposed in 2018. Also overwhelmingly negative.
Let me pause at this point and say that state Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, opined that despite the all the opposition to the mining proposal, “Those are decisions that shouldn’t be made by political entities. Those are decisions that should be made by regulatory agencies.” Really?
Gooch has announced he is running for Lt. Governor which last time I looked is a political entity. If and when he asks you for your vote, please ask him if he still feels that way. If so, why do we need him making decisions? Let’s let unelected bureaucrats make all the decisions and he can busy himself cutting ribbons at Walmart grand openings.
After Twin Pines Minerals had crawled back into the hole from whence they came, Toledo Manufacturing, the largest remaining private landowner along the swamp’s southeastern boundary, had publicly solicited the Chemours Company, the world’s biggest titanium mining company, to join forces. That’s not likely anytime soon.
It turns out that Chemours has announced it is laying off one-third of its workforce in Georgia due to a slump in titanium dioxide prices and a global glut of the stuff, thanks to the Chinese. In addition, new research by scientists at the University of Georgia suggests that mining in or around the swamp could affect groundwater supplies relied on by millions of people.
Now that drilling for toothpaste whitener in our Okefenokee is not economically feasible and UGA scientists have research that it’s an unwise thing to do ecologically, wouldn’t this be a good time to stick a fork in the whole thing and pass the Okefenokee Protection Act? The answer is (a) yes and (b) don’t hold your breath.
I suspect our intrepid public servants and their land baron pals will wait for market conditions to improve and then it will be déjà vu all over again. But if they think we are going away, they are mistaken. They may pretend there is no elephant in the room, but we know better.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139
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