U.S Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) blasted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s opposition to a controversial mine planned near the Okefenokee Swamp in a Congressional hearing last week, calling the agency’s critiques of the project “propaganda.”
“I’m not entering an opinion one way or the other (about the mine),” Carter said. “My concern here is the federal government and their role in this and why they’re inserting themselves into this when it has obviously been stated to be a state project under state permitting.”
Carter’s comments came during a May 16 hearing held by the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee’s Water, Wildlife and Fisheries subcommittee. While he is not a member of the committee, Carter was allowed to question the witness panel. Carter’s district includes most of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, as well as the site less than three miles from the refuge where an Alabama-based company is seeking state permits to mine.
The company, Twin Pines Minerals wants to extract titanium minerals from a 582-acre tract on Trail Ridge, the ancient sand dune formation that runs along the swamp’s eastern flank. Draft permits for the mine were released earlier this year, but regulators at the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) are still weighing whether to grant the project final approval. Over the course of a 60-day public comment period that ended in April, EPD received more than 77,000 responses to the draft permits. Virtually all the comments were in opposition to the mine.
Credit: Nathan Posner for The AJC
Credit: Nathan Posner for The AJC
Twin Pines has pledged that its mine will not harm the swamp, which is the largest blackwater wetland in North America. So far, EPD has mostly agreed with the company’s analysis. Environmental groups and outside scientists, meanwhile, have warned for years that the groundwater withdrawals the company plans could imperil the fragile ecosystem and its wildlife.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which manages the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, has also repeatedly voiced its opposition to the mine. Those actions were the subject of Carter’s ire. Carter’s comments were first reported by The Current.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
During the hearing, Carter criticized FWS Director Martha Williams for a letter U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland sent to Gov. Brian Kemp in 2022. In the letter, Haaland said the mine posed an “unacceptable risk” to the Okefenokee and urged Kemp to deny the permits.
Carter said the letter was “unsolicited” and was an “overreach of the Secretary’s authority and without legal basis.” He also took issue with a flyer published by FWS in April answering “frequently asked questions” about the agency’s opposition to the Twin Pines mine. Holding a copy of the document, Carter lambasted the flyer and asked Williams why taxpayer money was being spent on “propaganda like this opposing the project.”
Credit: U.S. Department of the Interior
Credit: U.S. Department of the Interior
Williams said she was unaware of the flyer, but defended the agency’s involvement in the mine saga. Also in April, FWS submitted 54 pages of formal comments to EPD on the draft mine permits, detailing the agency’s opposition to the project and offering technical analysis of its potential impacts.
“We commented because the proposed action has the potential to negatively impact the National Wildlife Refuge and its water rights,” Williams said.
Other Georgia elected officials have weighed in opposing the mine. In April, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., submitted his own comments to EPD, calling the Okefenokee “irreplaceable” and urging the agency to deny the permits.
“Should EPD approve this mine, there is a clear and credible risk of severe and irreversible long-term damage to the (Okefenokee National Wildlife) Refuge,” Ossoff wrote.
EPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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