Update 2024-12-09: Virtual public meeting about the minor proposed expansion of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge 2024-12-09.

Update 2024-11-16: Why Okefenokee NWR expansion matters in Florida –Rose Schnabel, WUFT 2024-11-16.

Chip Campbell, formerly of Okefenokee Expeditions Adventures, summed it up so everyone could understand, the proposed expansion of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge: nobody has to sell land.

According to https://www.fws.gov/refuge/okefenokee, “The public has until November 18, 2024 to submit input via email to Okefenokee@fws.gov”

Nobody has to sell land with Okefenokee NWR expansion, Public Meeting, Folkston, GA 2024-11-12

To paraphrase Chip’s paraphrase: the Refuge expansion is aspirational. With it, if someone wants to sell to the Refuge they can. Without it, they can’t.

The expansion does nothing to affect the strip mine application. The miners could choose to sell or donate the land before any permit. They could mine and later donate or sell the land. Or neither. But without the expansion, there is no mechanism for their land to join the Refuge.

Addressing the dozen or so people from Charlton and the other counties surrounding the Refuge, Chip said they could sell or take out a conservation easement, or not, if they are within the expansion boundary. Nobody is making them do anything.

Public Meeting in Folkston 2024-11-12

Most of the other people were the usual opponents to the strip mine, including a few from as far as Gainesville, Florida. Plus at least half a dozen people with the Refuge staff or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I thank them all for coming, and those who spoke.

I spoke in support of the expansion, mentioning the 2017 resolution from the Charlton County Commission to the Lowndes County Commission thanking them for fire fighting support as an example of how the Okefenokee Swamp matters to people far away.

“There’s nobody that can tackle something like that alone,” said Emergency Management Director Ashley Tye, 2017-08-08

That was after the West Mims Fire that burned more than 100,000 acres, including Billys Island.

Infra-red and recon flight map 2017-05-03 08:31:33.082-CDT from InciWeb.

And the WWALS Floyds Island campout Sunday and Monday that I missed partly because I was encouraging people to write letters of support for the expansion of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Campers came from as far as Miami, South Carolina, and Alabama, illustrating the widespread attraction of the Okefenokee Swamp.

I said I was there as Suwannee Riverkeeper, working for clean water in the entire 10,000-square mile Suwannee River Basin in Georgia and Florida, including around 85% of the Okefenokee Swamp.

Map: South Okefenokee Swamp in the WWALS map of all public landings in the Suwannee River Basin.

I said Suwannee Riverkeeper supports the expansion especially because it protects the entire Swamp, not just one side. And we support finding ways to get jobs in all four counties surrounding the Swamp, including Baker County, Florida. With our effort towards economic development including suggesting more boat ramps on the Suwannee River, which is now in the hands of Clinch and Echols Counties and the relevant landowners.

Michael Lusk, Manager, Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

Refuge Manager Michael Lusk did an admirable job of explaining what the proposal is.

Scoping map for minor expansion proposal of okefenokee NWR
PDF

Sommebody asked him why just a minor expansion? Answer: because that’s less than 15% more acreage, and can be done by the regional USFWS office in Atlanta. More than 15% would have to be done by USFWS national.

Somebody asked why not take in all of Trail Ridge. Answer: because they were only interested in what drained into the Swamp, and also that would be more than 15%.

Somebody asked him how long he had known about the expansion plan. Answer: since September.

Naturally, somebody stood up and said this had been going on much longer and the U.N. was behind it. That speaker presented no evidence, because there is none.

AJC Reporter, Michael Lusk, Questioner

Somebody else asked how long the Swamp had existed in its present form? Answer: about 5,000 years. The questioner wondered who had been conserving it before the Refuge? Competing answers were shouted, including Native Americans and the one and only Almighty God!

The latter person had apparently not heard of the Hebard Lumber Company or its subsidiary the Hebard Cypress Company, that cut down most of the cypress and pine trees in the Swamp between about 1909 and 1926.

Loading Cypress Timber from Okefenokee Swamp for Hebard Cypress Co. Mill, Waycross, GA

They ran small-gauge railways across the Swamp to extract the lumber.

Logging Railroads in the Okefenokee Swamp 1889-1942

My distant cousin Harry Quarterman was the manager of the logging boom town on Billys Island.

Billys Island Lumber Camp –CTT 1979

That’s what happens when areas like the Okefenokee Swamp are not conserved. That Billys Island town once housed 600 people, with many jobs. The cost was the razing of the Swamp.

Billys Island Town

The Okefenokee Swamp we see today is mostly new growth since 1926. It is not the same Swamp of 5,000 years ago.

According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, “In 1937 the federal government purchased the Hebard Lumber Company property, and Roosevelt created the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge (now the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge) by executive order.”

It was the U.S. federal government that finally protected the Swamp.

If we are not going to protect the Okefenokee Swamp now, what are we going to protect?

Shady gators on log, Minnie’s Lake, Suwannee River, Okefenokee Swamp, 2023-11-05, 11:28:03, 30.8616551, -82.3231197

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

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