The Okefenokee Wilderness and National Wildlife Refuge is Still at Risk: Raise Your Voice to Keep It Wild!

While most of the country is trying to cope with the spread of COVID-19, Twin Pines Minerals—an Alabama-based company that plans on building a massive heavy minerals (titanium and zirconium) sand mine next to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness in Georgia—quietly presses on. The Okefenokee Refuge covers 440,000 acres in all, of which 353,981 acres were designated by Congress in 1974 as Wilderness, making the Okefenokee Wilderness one of the largest Wildernesses in the country east of the Rockies.

The Okefenokee Wilderness is part of one of the world’s largest still intact blackwater swamp ecosystems, and provides important habitat for native wildlife such as black bears, American alligators, and red-cockaded woodpeckers. Obviously, water is critical to the well-being of Okefenokee, which is recognized worldwide as a Wetland of International Importance. The proposed mine could impact thousands of acres of wetlands, which would forever change the unique ecosystem of the Swamp. Wilderness values like solitude, silence, and remoteness could be impacted by the close proximity of industrial mining activity and associated development. 

Twin Pines Minerals wants to mine 12,000 acres of Trail Ridge where it forms the eastern border of the Okefenokee Refuge and Wilderness. Among the concerns of mining so close to the Wilderness is that hydrologic and water quality changes will damage the Swamp, as well as the St. Marys and Suwannee Rivers that flow from its beautiful, placid waters.

After the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told the company that a full environmental impact statement (EIS) would be required to evaluate the adverse impacts of the mine (thanks in no small part to over 14,000 letters sent by Wilderness Watch supporters!), Twin Pines withdrew its application in February 2020. Twin Pines has now resubmitted an application for the first phase of the mine as a "demonstration project" spanning 898 acres in the hopes of avoiding the scientific scrutiny and public comments that go with a full-blown EIS. 

The Corps now needs to hear from you—again—to save the threatened Okefenokee Wilderness! Submit your concerns to the Corps and ask the agency to deny Twin Pines a toehold on Trail Ridge and request a full EIS that includes a peer-reviewed groundwater flow model of the Swamp and the mining site itself. The comment deadline is May 28, 2020.