Dear Peach,
Less than one week after my opinion piece ran in the Savannah Morning News,
Representative Jeff Jones (R-Brunswick) has answered our call for leadership.
Yesterday (Friday, March 20), he asked his colleagues in the Georgia House of
Representatives to support his proposed amendments to SB101 that would narrow
loopholes in the bill.
There are only 7 days left to pass a bill to protect our marshes. We need you
to encourage the coastal delegation to support Representative Jones' amendments
to SB101!
Representative Jones' amended language fixes two dangerous loopholes in the
bill.
1. One
amendment would narrow the shoreline stabilization structure loophole by requiring
all projects that incorporate a new shoreline stabilization structure (built after
December 31, 2015), to comply with the buffer provision or obtain a variance from
the Environmental Protection Division.
2. Instead of effectively exempting all projects with a federal permit, a second
amendment directs the Board of the Department of Natural Resources to develop
rules that guide the granting of variances for these types of projects.
Please don't let the members of our coastal delegation forget how important a
marsh buffer is to you.They need your support - and so does our marsh.
Even if you have already written, please take a few minutes to urge the members of
our coastal delegation to sign onto Representative Jeff Jones' amendments to
SB101.
Thank you for all you are doing to protect our coastal salt marsh. I hope you have a
great weekend!
Sincerely,
Megan J. Desrosiers
Executive Director
www.OneHundredMiles.org
Even if you have already written, please take a few minutes to urge the
members of our coastal delegation to sign onto Representative Jeff Jones'
amendments to SB101.
(mailto:alex.atwood@house.ga.gov, bob.bryant@house.ga.gov,
gloria.frazier@house.ga.gov, jcraig.gordon@house.ga.gov,
bill.hitchens@house.ga.gov, jb.jones@house.ga.gov, butch.parrish@house.ga.gov
, jesse.petrea@house.ga.gov, jason.shaw@house.ga.gov,
jason.spencer@house.ga.gov, mickey.stephens@gmail.com,
ron.stephens@house.ga.gov, al.williams@house.ga.gov,
lester.jackson@senate.ga.gov,
william.ligon@senate.ga.gov,
ben.watson@senate.ga.gov
Coastal lawmaker tries to salvage marsh protections
Posted: March 21, 2015 - 11:22pm | Updated: March 22, 2015 - 7:39am
This siting of this jellyfish processing factory on the Sapelo River in 2014 shows the changes that could come if loopholes aren't closed
in the current marsh buffer bill, environmentalists say. Photocourtesy Megan Desrosiers/ One Hundred Miles.
By Mary Landers
Worried that the current marsh buffer bill is too weak, Rep. Jeff Jones of Brunswick is gathering support for a
substitute that would close its major loopholes.
On Friday, Jones emailed his fellow state representatives with his substitute for S.B. 101, the buffer bill
introduced by Savannah Republican state Sen. Ben Watson.
“Many of us believe that S.B. 101, as presented, has too many broad exceptions and significantly hampers the
Environmental Protection Division of the DNR’s ability to effectively and properly manage and protect
Georgia’s coastal marshes,” Jones wrote to house members. “I’ve been working with (Rules Committee)
Chairman (John) Meadows, other representatives and members of the environmental community, to craft a
substitute bill that tightens up the broad exception language in the original S.B. 101 and effectively returns
control and oversight of handling marsh buffer exceptions to the EPD.”
Georgia’s vast coastal marshes make up about a third of the salt marsh remaining on the East Coast. Owned by
the state, they provide a nursery for shrimp and fish, a protection against hurricane damage and a critical piece
of coastal recreational and tourism-based industries. For more than a decade, the state had required a 25-foot
area of undeveloped land around salt marshes to serve as a buffer protecting them from sediment as well as
from fertilizers, motor oil and other pollutants.
But last April, after lengthy wrangling with Chatham County over mitigation required for the construction of a
Whitemarsh Island boat ramp, the state concluded there was no legal basis for the buffer requirement and
stopped imposing it.
Watson’s bill provides for a 25-foot buffer, but it includes exemptions critics say would allow almost
unlimited development. The first is for projects with shoreline stabilization, such as a bulkhead or rip rap. It
offers the exemption not only for existing shore stabilization, but also for new projects. Jones suggests
exempting only grandfathered structures, limited to those in place by the end of this year.
Watson’s bill also exempts projects that receive a federal Clean Water Act permit. Though offered as a way to
avoid duplicative red tape, the federal permits don’t provide the same protections as a buffer.
Jones suggests tweaking the bill so that EPD must establish variance guidelines for projects that have federal
permits.
“I have a personal interest in protecting coastal marshlands,” said Jones, a Republican who lives on St.
Simons. “As I and others have looked at 101 it just doesn’t do it. It has too many wide open loopholes in my
opinion, and I’ve sought the counsel of other folks who agreed.”
Building questions
Taken together, the two exemptions allow major construction at the water’s edge, said Bill Sapp, a senior
attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“If you want to put in a large structure and want it right on the water all you have to do is secure an Army
Corps permit — and it’s easy to get them — and there can be no buffer behind that stabilization structure,”
said Sapp, a registered lobbyist who has advocated for a more marsh-protective bill.
A steel-clad jellyfish processing plant near Darien offers an example of what’s to come if the bill passes as is,
Sapp warned. One end of the steel-clad building hangs over rip rap in the Sapelo River.
“That is not what you want the coast to look like,” Sapp said.
Savannah’s Alton Brown Jr. of Resource and Land Consultants said such an outcome was unlikely.
“I work in permitting; I’ve never had a client come to me and say I want to get a bulkhead so I can build in the
buffer,” Brown said.
Brown is not a registered lobbyist, but he did assist Watson with the bill, lending his expertise as an
environmental consultant with clients including county governments and Sea Island Acquisitions LLC. His
company also has employed Sen. Ben Watson’s son as a biologist, though he is no longer working there. A Sea
Island lobbyist, attorney Patricia Barmeyer with King + Spalding, said earlier this month she was “well
involved” with S.B. 101 but declined to comment further about the bill.
Fixing concerns?
Rep. Debbie Buckner (D-Columbus) is among those supporting Jones.
“The substitute bill he’s proposing fixes the two greatest concerns I had about the bill,” said Buckner, who
owns property in Darien.
Watson has made it difficult to attach amendments to his bill — they can’t be attached on the house floor, for
instance, which is why Jones is working on it while it’s in the rules committee. Watson told Buckner a
changed bill would be killed in the senate.
“He made it clear to me personally that he wants it untouched,” she said.
Those tactics bother Buckner.
“Our whole purpose in being in Atlanta is to perfect bills,” she said. “It’s not about passing something
someone wrote for some client. It’s about what is for the best for all Georgians, or in this case what is the best
for Georgia’s environment.”
Patching the buffer bill with two amendments is insufficient
Important as they are, even if the two proposed amendments were to be adopted, SB101 would
still not provide adequate safeguards for the marsh. Building in the buffer is not the only
problem.
A troubling feature of the law not addressed by either amendment is allowance for the
replacement of natural vegetation with cultivated, chemical-dependent lawns, gardens, and golfcourses.
If these landscape changes cannot be prevented by SB101, there are serious reasons to doubt the
benefit of the marsh buffer. Chemicals used in maintaining these non-native forms of vegetation
are known to be lethal to shrimp, crab, fish, and wildlife that inhabit the marsh. These living
resources are the backbone of coastal Georgia's $2 billion-a-year nature-based economy and add
greatly to our quality of life.
Furthermore, loss of native vegetation allowed by SB101 will seriously weaken the filtration
functions of the buffer. Contaminants carried by runoff from the upland, as well as eroded soil,
must be kept out of the marsh as much as possible, and retaining natural vegetation is the best
way to do that.
At this stage, assertions that such fundamental 'refinements' can be adopted next year sound like
wishful thinking. Well-justified SB101 amendments have been strongly recommended by scores
of concerned citizens at every stage of the bill's consideration in the Senate and House yet
persistently rebuffed by legislators.
We believe that the best solution is a stripped-down bill that avoids unclosed loopholes and
contentious lobbyist-instigated language by simply going back to the original marsh buffer as it
existed until last year and changing the definition of the marsh-edge, from which the 25-foot
buffer is measured.
The marsh-edge should be defined in the same way that it is legally determined under the revered
Coastal Marshlands Protection Act, and natural vegetation must be retained within the buffer.
~ David Kyler, Center for a Sustainable Coast
David Kyler, Executive Director
Center for a Sustainable Coast
221 Mallory Street Suite B
Saint Simons Island, Georgia 31522
Voice: 912.506.5088
Advocating responsible decisions that sustain
Coastal Georgia’s environment and quality of life.
www.sustainablecoast.org