Let us revisit the matter of drilling for titanium dioxide in our Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in order that the world as we know it never runs out of toothpaste whitener.
Although you have strongly expressed your concerns to our intrepid public servants under the Gold Dome and I have commented on the issue more than once, I will be the first to admit not much has changed as to getting permanent ban on drilling. Our irresistible force has not moved the immovable object. If you have gotten any response at all from the governor’s office or your local legislator, it has been ladened with political-speak. (“Thank you for sharing your concerns. I will carefully consider them in dealing with this important matter.”) Translation? Go pound sand.
A few weeks ago, I received a rebuttal from Drew Jones challenging my “assertions and implications” on drilling in the Okefenokee “that require correction.” It was a rather long letter and I suggested he shorten it a bit and I would share it with you. As of this writing I have not heard back. It is probably just as well. Knowing how you feel about the issue, I’m not sure you would be much swayed by his own assertions. But that is up to him and to you. I promise I will pass them along as written.
Incidentally, Jones is a Charlton County commissioner and lists his occupation as a forest land manager for Toledo Manufacturing Co and WC Hopkins and Sons LLLP. He is also the nephew-in-law of Joe Hopkins, president of Toledo Manufacturing, who is viewed as the real immovable object behind the proposed ban.
Hopkins owns 50,000 acres in Charlton County and frames the issue as one of property rights. He argues that laws to protect the Okefenokee from mining would infringe on his property rights. The government shouldn’t be telling property owners like him what they can or cannot do with their property – like drag mining it for toothpaste whitener?
Attorney Josh Marks, who heads Georgians for the Okefenokee and worked to prevent mining near the Okefenokee in the 1990s when DuPont proposed mining, is a perpetual thorn in Hopkins’ side and says that’s a specious argument.
“Prohibiting mining along the swamp’s edge would in no way violate his constitutional rights,” he wrote in an email to the publication, The Current. “The fact that I can’t put a casino or commercial chicken house in my backyard doesn’t mean that my constitutional rights have been violated.”
Some people assumed that when the Conservation Fund bought out the woebegone Twin Pines LLC and took back 7,700 acres that they had planned to mine that this ended any threat to potentially damage the Okefenokee. Not so.
Even though Twin Pines is gone, there are still large tracts of privately-owned land on Trail Ridge that are candidates for mining. At one time, chemical giant Chemours – a spinoff from Dupont – was thought be a candidate to replace Twin Pines but the company has said it is shifting away from doing mining itself and will stick to processing of minerals mined by others.
Of course, Chemours has other problems right now. They are being sued by local governments and families in the northwest Georgia area along with other chemical companies and carpet manufacturers for contaminating local water, air, and soil with “forever chemicals.”
That doesn’t mean other companies couldn’t come in and do a deal with Toledo or other landowners in the area to drag mine for titanium dioxide as long as there is no law preventing them from doing so.
As I have said before, political decisions can be made only one of two ways – the application of pressure or the absence of it. So far, our intrepid public servants have felt more pressure from the timber barons than from those seeking a permanent ban on mining the Okefenokee. That may be about to change.
The Garden Club of Georgia with 12,000 members in some 350 clubs is asking their members to write their local legislators urging the state to do something before “another landowner sells his property to a different mining company.” (If I may offer a suggestion: Call them. Their numbers are listed on the website, www.legis.ga.gov. Otherwise, you are going to get the “Thank you for sharing your concerns” bromide.)
Gov. Brian Kemp, legislators and assorted bureaucrats need to accept the fact that we aren’t going away. They may think they are the immovable object but we are an irresistible force.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139
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