Joe Hopkins has more than 50,000 reasons to support mining near the Okefenokee.
That’s how many acres his timber company, Toledo Manufacturing, owns in Charlton County, where Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals has proposed a controversial plan to strip mine.
Hopkins doesn’t own any land for which mining permits are being sought. And he’s not a big fan of Twin Pines. But he is an ardent supporter of private property rights — and the free market.
He championed those values last year while helping block legislation that would have limited mining in Charlton County, a place where he has lived for all of his 72 years.
The attorney and forester, whose family-controlled business is one of the largest land owners in the county, wields an outsize influence over the debate about how best to sustain the black water swamp, one of Georgia’s most unique natural resources, as well as the economies of the region surrounding it.
To some environmental conservationists, Hopkins is a conundrum. To a neighbor who argued he didn’t need to fatten his bank accounts with mining profits, he replied that his money was none of her business.
But talk to Hopkins long enough, and it becomes clear that personal wealth isn’t the only thing driving him in this political battle about the future of the Okefenokee and his own home county forever.
“I feel helpless that the only thing I could offer would be a mine, and that’s not going to be received well by a lot of folks from a lot of different places,” he said.
But this area needs a boost, he said.
“When you get excited because you got a landfill and a mine and a prison,” he said. “You’ve got to think, it doesn’t take a lot to get you excited, does it?”
Land-based legacy
Charlton is Georgia’s southernmost county and one of three counties that host the Okefenokee. The land there has grown not only Hopkins’ pine trees, but also his wealth and influence.
The sandy soil is almost a second skin to the veteran timberman. The summer he turned 17, Hopkins sweated his way through the forests owned by Toledo Manufacturing, his family’s business.
“I was the paint man,” Hopkins said, during an interview in his Folkston office where mounted deer heads line the wood wainscoted walls. He reminisced about the old days as he talked about the future.
Back when he was a teen, an older worker cleared the trail and Hopkins followed behind brushing silver paint on trees to mark the property’s boundary for $1.25 an hour.
On Wednesdays that summer job turned sticky. That’s when he’d collected the barrels of pine gum for turpentine production.
“There’s no way to do that without getting pine gum from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet,” Hopkins said.
Sticky still describes the situation in Charlton, ground zero for the ongoing debate about mining near the Okefenokee swamp. Twin Pines Minerals plans to mine for titanium dioxide and zirconium in the county, and insists it won’t disturb the swamp despite its project reaching within 3 miles from the edge of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.
Opponents of strip mining say the work will disrupt the flow of water in the blackwater swamp, risking drought there. The largest refuge east of the Mississippi, the Okefenokee is a candidate for UN World Heritage Site status. Even that proposed designation is controversial. Some locals believe that an international body’s designation is a slippery slope to installing communism in their backyard.
State regulators at the Environmental Protection Division issued draft permits for the mine in February. Since then, they’ve been reviewing and responding to the nearly 80,000 public comments received from around Georgia and the country. No date has been set for the EPD’s final decision. Critics of the proposal have been expecting it “any day now” since mid-summer.
Toledo Manufacturing, locals believe, has an oversized stake in the next steps. Its land holdings place the company alongside timber industry giant Rayonier Forest Resources, an international real estate investment trust that owns almost 66,000 acres in Charlton, and the largest private owner of timberland in the U.S., Weyerhaeuser Forest Holdings, with nearly 44,500 acres in Charlton.
Hopkins, however, with his lifelong presence in the county, has an influential voice, even though Toledo’s land isn’t currently part of the mining proposal. Adding to his importance is the fact that some of his company’s land is ripe for mining in the future, especially if the Twin Pines permit gets a green light.
Hopkins is Toledo’s CEO and CFO. His nephew-in-law, Charlton County Commissioner Drew Jones, runs the company day to day.
Private property rights rule
Efforts over the last few years to pass laws to protect the Okefenokee from mining have stalled after Hopkins has argued that such legislation would infringe on his property rights.
Both Hopkins and Jones testified in March 2023 against what looked like slam-dunk state legislation – the Okefenokee Protection Act. The bill would have prevented all future mining on Trail Ridge, the land that runs east of the swamp that hydrologists say forms a type of natural dam, while preserving Twin Pines’ permit. The number of supporters for the bill would have guaranteed its passage out of the Georgia House, but state Rep. Lynn Smith, the Republican chair of the Natural Resources & Environment Committee, never allowed it to come to a vote.
Hopkins was one of those arguing against its success. His position: The bill would bypass the established permitting process and, in doing so, infringe on private property rights.
“The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution does provide that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law,” testified Hopkins, a lawyer by training. “That’s what your EPD does. That’s what it does. It provides that due process of law.”
A 2024 compromise bill provided for a three-year moratorium on the acceptance of applications to Georgia EPD for new permits for surface mining using the heavy-duty excavating tools called draglines for heavy mineral sands. It passed the House but failed to make it to a vote on the senate floor.
Josh Marks disputes Hopkins’ opinion. Marks is an Atlanta-based attorney who has worked to prevent mining near the Okefenokee since the 1990s when DuPont proposed mining and withdrew after public outcry grew heated.
“Prohibiting mining along the swamp’s edge, which has been proposed by nearly 100 members of the Georgia House of Representatives the last two years, would in no way violate his constitutional rights,” he wrote in an email to The Current. “It would be just like any other zoning ordinance that protects the community from damage caused by one landowner’s use.
“The fact that I can’t put a casino or commercial chicken house in my backyard doesn’t mean that my constitutional rights have been violated. Moreover, Hopkins could still use his land for timber, hunting and residential development as he’s done for decades, which has made him a multimillionaire.”
Land values hinge on permits
Twin Pines Minerals needs a suite of permits from the state of Georgia before it can begin mining. The EPD issued draft permits for the project earlier this year, but with no deadline for the agency to act, it has not yet finalized them.
If the EPD issues a mining permit to Twin Pines, the decision would boost the value of nearby land, including Toledo’s acreage.
The proposed mining is focused on Trail Ridge, the strip of land parallel to the Okefenokee, said Andrew Shock, vice president and regional director of conservation acquisition for The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit that purchases land to provide time for permanent conservation to be achieved.
The ancient sand dunes that formed Trail Ridge left deposits of heavy mineral sands that can be mined for titanium dioxide, a whitener used in a myriad of products from Oreo cookies to toothpaste; and zirconium, used in electronics, fiber optics, lenses and firearms. About a mile wide, Trail Ridge runs from Starke, Fla., north to Hoboken, Ga., in Brantley County.
The value of land on Trail Ridge depends on the quantity of minerals there and the ability to extract them.
“But when you think about the economics of it, what are those minerals worth?” Shock said in a telephone interview with The Current. “They’re only worth something if you can sell them. If you’re not able to extract them, either because it’s too costly to extract them …or you’re not legally able to extract them, then what value do they have? Very, very little.”
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which owns and operates the wildlife refuge, in October proposed an expansion of the Okefenokee, targeting willing sellers around the refuge’s current borders, including Twin Pines’ land as well as some of Toledo’s. The federal government would purchase the land and manage it to provide a fire buffer around the refuge, protecting timberland from wildfires that start in the swamp.
Swamp supporters in the state legislature jumped on the idea. State Rep. Darlene Taylor (R-Thomasville) wrote to Gov. Kemp last month urging him to deny Twin Pines’ permit and thus keep surrounding land affordable.
“Instead of allowing this risky and unneeded project to proceed, we believe that the fair, more reasonable approach would be to support the acquisition and conservation of the mining lands, and the timing is right and the opportunity is at hand,” she wrote.
“But for such an acquisition to have any chance for success, the state must follow the science, the law and the will of the people and deny the permits for TPM’s mining project. This one act will incentivize TPM to sell the land at the reasonable price.”
Hopkins said he would consider selling his mineral rights to an entity that would perpetually retire them. But he wants full value for the asset.
“If it could be done to where it would not prohibit me from doing anything else from the property and it was adequate compensation, I would certainly sit down and entertain it,” he said.
He says he is in regular touch with Shock at the Conservation Fund. The group is also talking with other members of the Greater Okefenokee Association of Landowners (GOAL), a group Hopkins helped found in the 1990s to coordinate the response to fire and other wildlife resource issues in and around the swamp.
“If you’re interested in selling your land, we, the Conservation Fund, would be interested in buying it,” Shock said. “And if we’re successful in buying it, then we will manage it for a fire resilient buffer.”
Not a Twin Pines’ fan
Hopkins, meanwhile, is open about his dislike for Twin Pines.
He says the Alabama company’s approach to strip mining and its request for more than 1 million gallons of water a day from the Floridan aquifer has fueled local opposition to mining.
Other companies, he said, would be more trusted to mine in a more sustainable way.
“I honestly wish Chemours was in Twin Pines’ place right now,” he said. Chemours, a chemical and mining company valued at $2.76 billion, was spun off from DuPont in 2015. “Would that stop the opposition? No, it would not stop it but I think it would tone it down a little bit.”
Hopkins criticizes Twin Pines’ work in Charlton so far. He says the company lacks mining experience and has stumbled along the way to permitting. Regulators fined the company $20,000 in January for failing to follow state law regarding the drilling of hundreds of boreholes used to collect data for the project. Later in the year, the company fell behind on its property taxes, owing Charlton County $365,000 in taxes, penalties and interest, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“I’m afraid some of their prior actions have destroyed their reputation,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins said the last interaction he had with Twin Pines representatives was at the legislative hearing in 2023.
About Twin Pines, he and Marks have found common ground.
The conservationist, however, has another worry. If the Twin Pines permit comes through, other companies — ones he doesn’t trust — will eventually start mining as well.
“(T)he logical next step would be for Chemours, DuPont’s successor, to take over the TPM operation just like it bought the Southern Ionics operation in northeastern Charlton County in 2019,” he wrote. “Chemours would then expand its mining operations onto Hopkins’ land immediately to the north to create DuPont 2.0, which would be the doomsday scenario.”
Chemours did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Rayonier, which leases land elsewhere in the country for mining, also did not respond to requests for comment.
Lucky man
Hopkins’ great uncle, W.C. Hopkins, started Toledo Manufacturing in 1912 with several other men and eventually bought them out. W.C. raised Joe Hopkins’ father and became a grandfather-figure to Joe, whose own father died when he was 8.
“I’m very fortunate to be one of the family who had a visionary person like that,” he said. “I view that as a blessing and a gift and an obligation. I will hand it back the same way.”
Hopkins hadn’t planned to take over the family business. He graduated from Emory University School of Law and returned to Folkston, practicing law for 11 years.
“Then I determined I was going to beat my father into the grave, and he died at 45,” Hopkins said.
A bobcat crosses a boardwalk at the Okefenokee Swamp, Dec. 7 2023, Okefenokee NWR, Georgia. Credit: Justin Taylor/The Current 
An alligator lays in the sun in the Okefenokee swamp, Dec. 7 2023, Okefenokee NWR, Georgia. Credit: Justin Taylor/The Current 
Georgia River Network Executive Director Rena Peck shows off a handful of peat. 
Kayakers in the Okefenokee swamp. April 28, 2023, Okefenokee NWR, GA Credit: Justin Taylor/The Current 
Ferns line a boardwalk trail at the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Ferns make up a portion of the peat beneath the swamp. Credit: Justin Taylor 
Aerial view of the Okefenokee Swamp, Dec. 7 2023, Okefenokee NWR, Georgia. Credit: Justin Taylor/The Current
Along with being the father of two, he added forest management to his work load in addition to law, a job he called “all-consuming.”
“I couldn’t go to the grocery store,” he said. “It’d be two hours before I’d get back home. Somebody would catch me, ‘I need to ask you something’.”
He eventually set aside the law practice to focus on forestry and brought his nephew-in-law into it. Like Hopkins, Jones lost his father young. He also had a professional career – his in pharmacy – before coming to Toledo Manufacturing.
Hopkins has never run for political office. He works his influence elsewhere. He’s been head of the national Forest Landowners Association and the Georgia Forestry Association. He was Forest Landowner of the Year in 2017, a national honor.
Marks, the Atlanta-based attorney who opposes Twin Pines’ efforts, sees Hopkins as the linchpin keeping the mining issue alive.
“Joe Hopkins is the only logical explanation for why TPM’s fiasco of a project has survived this long,” Marks wrote in an email to The Current.
Hopkins leased 23,000 acres immediately north of the Twin Pines tract to DuPont in the 1990s. But DuPont terminated that lease after it retreated from plans to mine near the Okefenokee.
Hopkins has donated $6,500 to Gov. Brian Kemp since 2017, and $7,950 to U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter since 2014.
His donations have won him access, Hopkins said.
“It enabled me to have somebody that would sit down and would listen to me,” he said.
But he doesn’t always get his way, he said.
“Can I get either one to do what I want them to do? No.”
He cites as evidence the fact that he served on the Georgia Ports Authority Board, appointed first by Gov. Sonny Perdue. Gov. Nathan Deal reappointed Hopkins to board. But Brian Kemp put an end to Hopkins’ GPA tenure.
“He saw fit to appoint some other folks after I told him I’d like to serve one more term,” Hopkins said. “So that’s how close I am to the governor.”
As with other pro-Trump Republicans in Georgia, Hopkins “bumped heads” with Kemp over the 2020 presidential election. Hopkins still suspects there were fraudulent votes, and he disapproves of the state’s expansion of early voting. He’s quit giving Kemp money, he said, because he doesn’t know Kemp’s next move.
“You can’t run for governor again so tell me why I’m sending you money, and I ain’t got an answer,” he said.
Marks, however, views Hopkins influence behind the scenes with the agency responsible for the mining permits: the EPD.
“How else to explain why EPD would continue to negligently consider a project that scores of independent scientists say will damage the swamp, and which is proposed by a company in TPM with no experience in titanium mining but that has broken the law in four states and defaulted on its Georgia property taxes?” Marks wrote.
‘We need something’
As a teen, Hopkins worked for a refuge concessionaire guiding tourists through the Okefenokee Swamp in a 20-foot aluminum boat.
The job drew him close to nature – like the time a 500-pound alligator scrambled across the front of the tourist boat he was piloting.
“And I mean, it raised the back end of the boat when he did,” he recalled. “They could have rubbed him when he went by. It scared the daylights out of me.”
But he’s a pragmatic naturalist. He also knows that money — economic development — will make his beloved hometown of Folkston thrive.
How to ensure a thriving county is a debate that Hopkins never gets tired of having with his neighbors. Should the community back tourism — or mining?
Hopkins says both.
“Anything that would bring decent paying jobs would help,” he said. “There’s no certainty that solves the problem. It’s going to take a number of different things. But would (mining) be one thing that could help? Yes.”
But others say an extractive process like mining is not likely to offer long-term revitalization.
In 2022, a Harvard researcher analyzed the effect of mining on the area’s economy and concluded the Twin Pines project could lead to temporary economic growth but would ultimately hurt Georgia’s economy, costing the regional economy between $41.23 million and $190.76 million over 20 years.
The Okefenokee Protection Alliance brought the unpublished study to the governor in a June 2022 letter.
Refuge boosters see the Okefenokee as an attraction that could bring in enough tourists to revitalize Folkston. An effort to have the refuge declared a United Nation World Heritage Site has lifted those ambitions.
Hopkins, however, is suspicious of the U.N.’s interest. A sign outside Toledo Manufacturing declared “Keep the UN (UNESCO) out of the Okefenokee.”
There’s a historical reason for his skepticism.
The Okefenokee doesn’t bring a lot of money to the county, even though there’s a refuge entrance in Folkston. Tourists spend 90% of their money in Ware County, which hosts the private nonprofit Okefenokee Swamp Park, according to a February report “Projected Economic Impact of UNESCO World Heritage Site Designation: The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.”
The report advises investing in lodging, retail, and food service businesses in Charlton and Clinch counties to leverage the opportunity to grow.
Hopkins is doubtful there is any opportunity in tourism.
“We’ve never been a tourist destination,” he said, even though the refuge has been a constant since 1937.
“We’ve been a tourist pass-through,” he said.
The visitors that used to flow to Folkston’s now-defunct mom-and-pop hotels came because drivers traveled back roads like US 301 on their way to Florida. That dried up when I-95 opened, he said.
A tour of Folkston now is a tour of loss. Driving through town, Hopkins pointed out where Charlton Memorial Hospital was until it shut down in 2013. The sawmill is gone. The pants factory, too.
“This is what concerns me about my town,” he said. “When I grew up they were jobs for everybody. And now we’re just dying. We need something. I’m not saying the mine’s the right thing. We just need something.”
Neighbors who prefer investing in tourism over mining can’t separate Hopkins’ views from his own bottom line.
Many locals understand that mining would boost his wealth directly. Yet Hopkins dismisses their opinions. His net worth is nobody else’s business, he told a neighbor who suggested, years ago during the DuPont controversy, that he shouldn’t embrace mining because didn’t need the money.
“I looked at her and I said, ‘I don’t really know that that’s relevant,’” he recalled. “‘I don’t really know how you know what amount of money I need.’”
He told this neighbor – with whom he said he’s still friends – that at stake were hundreds of jobs plus taxes on the mining equipment.
“There’s a lot more to it than just the actual money that Toledo’s gonna get,” he recalled saying. “It just happens to be on our land. I would support it if it was on your land.”
And Toledo has about a dozen investors, Hopkins said.
“It’s not just for me, you know, I have some folks that only own a small percentage, and two happen to be widows, and you know, this is a lot of what they live on.”
What significant numbers of Georgians, both Hopkins’ neighbors and others, are watching for is whether the businessman will tip his hand about what price tag he would entertain for his family’s landholdings on Trail Ridge.
Hopkins says he has yet to get an offer from either side of the economic debate, the conservationists or mining interests.
For now, he’s open to all ideas.
“If we could determine that (price), and they could do that in a way that would not inhibit any other use of the property other than to mine the titanium out? Yes, I would certainly be amenable to sit down and talk to someone,” he said.
“But so far, I have not been approached in that manner.”
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