The state Environmental Protection Division has a unique way of celebrating Earth Day.
The department announced a revision of regulations that environmentalists say will greatly increase development along the Georgia coastline.
This explanatory note comes from Neil Herring of the Sierra Club:
From that line, to another line, 25 feet inland from the first appearance of plants from that list, was the salt marsh buffer, in which it was unlawful to remove, by uprooting, any vegetation, or building anything that would cover the ground in that 25 foot wide buffer.
Now, presumably a property owner can bulldoze right up to the salt grass (spartina) and build lovely structures that loom over it
.It’s rather thick, but read the new memo from Judson Turner, executive director of the state EPD:
“The irony is not lost on the environmental community that this proposal was issued on Earth Day,” says Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, executive director of GreenLaw, an environmental law firm.
The campaign of Jason Carter, the Democratic candidate for governor, has quickly jumped on the change. From the campaign:
This is a dramatic policy reversal that overturns decades of stewardship of Georgia's coasts," Carter said. "Once they have been destroyed, there's no going back. Gov. Deal needs to explain why those charged with conserving Georgia's precious natural resources are instead acting unilaterally to harm them."
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