November 14, 2024
Martha Williams,
Director U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Department of Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240
RE: Proposed Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge Boundary Expansion
Dear Director Williams,
On behalf of the Sierra Club, I want to express our enthusiastic support for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge (ONWR) Boundary Expansion Proposal.
Renowned the world over, the ONWR is the largest wildlife refuge east of the Mississippi River and one of the largest intact freshwater ecosystems on Earth. With significant historic, cultural, ecological, and economic importance, the Okefenokee sees more than 600,000 visitors annually who spend more than $90 million in nearby communities.
Recognized as a globally significant freshwater wetland system and wildlife habitat, the Okefenokee provides refuge for a number of imperiled species, including red-cockaded woodpeckers, gopher tortoises, indigo snakes and a plethora of other species of fauna and flora. The Okefenokee also serves as the headwaters for the St. Marys and Suwanee rivers and connects with Florida’s John Bethea State Forest and the Osceola National Forest wildlife habitats and wetlands. Together, they provide a fundamentally important conservation landscape of interlinked freshwater wetlands and wildlife habitats to form a wildlife corridor connecting Southeast Georgia and North Florida.
The Okefenokee Swamp and the surrounding wetlands are also an important and effective carbon sink. It is home to an estimated 400 million cubic meters of peat, and in some parts of the ONWR,the peat is more than 9 feet thick and thousands of years old. If water levels of the swamp fall even an inch or two, the peat below the surface would be exposed and dried, increasing the likelihood and severity of wildfires that would release a massive amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The FWS’s proposed expansion contains approximately 22,000 acres of privately-owned lands adjacent to the ONWR. One of the most significant privately owned tracts is located on Trail Ridge, a physiographic area stretching 160 km from Starke, Florida, to Hoboken, Georgia. Lying along the eastern boundary of ONWR, the ancient sand dunes of Trail Ridge serve as a hydrologic dam that protects and holds in the waters of the refuge before they flow southward to form the headwaters of the St. Mary’s and Suwanee Rivers. Lands within the boundary expansion proposal would also provide opportunities for restoring the longleaf pine forest that provide habitat for imperiled wildlife, including the gopher tortoise, indigo snake, the red-cockaded woodpecker, and hundreds of other species of plants and wildlife.
A substantial part of the proposed expansion includes lands along Trail Ridge owned by Twin Pines Minerals LLC, which is seeking state permits to open a titanium mine that would dredge up to 50 feet deep across more than 500 acres. Twin Pines is not the first company that has sought to mine Trail Ridge; DuPont attempted to strip-mine the area for titanium in the 1990s, but backed away after intense pressure from activists and federal officials. Expanding the boundaries of the ONWR would provide long-term protection for this delicate ecosystem and potentially prevent future mining proposals. The consequential impacts of the boundary expansion for the continued conservation and protection of OWNR cannot be overstated.
Consequently, the importance of continuing to conserve and protect the irreplaceable, pristine wetland systems and wildlife habitats of ONWR is vitally important. For these reasons, the Sierra Club strongly supports the approval of the ONWR boundary expansion.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Dan Ritzman
Sierra Club Director, Conservation Campaign
dan.ritzman@sierraclub.org