A state court has ruled Georgia must use a 25-foot buffer to protect all state waters, invalidating an earlier effort that would have eased development along the coast.
The Georgia Court of Appeals’ ruling this week came in response to a 2012 lawsuit filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of American Rivers and the Georgia River Network. The groups sued after the state did not require Grady County to get a variance to build a 960-acre fishing lake on Tired Creek near Cairo.
It has broader implications, however, that affect a decision made earlier this year by Jud Turner, the director of Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division, to remove a longstanding directive requiring buffers for marshlands along most of the Georgia coast.
“The Court holds that the General Assembly always intended that the buffer provision would extend to and protect all state waters,” Bill Sapp, an attorney with the SELC, said. “EPD will no longer be able to take a piecemeal approach to buffer protections — requiring a buffer on some waters and denying it on others.”
A judge in the lawsuit ruled in favor of the conservation groups in 2013, but the ruling was later overturned in the EPD’s favor, setting up Wednesday’s appeal ruling.
In April, Turner said the state would no longer apply the 25-foot buffer to new coastal development, upsetting conservationists who said the change would open the door to widespread development along Georgia’s coast. The problem stemmed from what Turner viewed as a conflict between the interpretations of two state laws: the Coastal Marshlands Protection Act and the Sedimentation Act.
Turner indicated last month that he would ask lawmakers to clarify their intentions about how the buffer should be applied during the next legislative session, starting in January.
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