Changes approved for St. Simons Beach

Wednesday, March 12, 2023

Good morning! We start today with a look at why the largest economic development project in Georgia is trucking its industrial wastewater offsite. We then move on to the nationwide decline in butterfly numbers and what Coastal Georgians can do to reverse that trend. We stop by Glynn County for an update on the renovation of a St. Simons beach park. And we end with updates on legislation related to the Okefenokee and to electric bills.

Questions, tips or concerns? Send me a note at mary.landers@thecurrentga.org

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NEWS: ENVIRONMENT

Trucking waste

“Pali-pali” is a Korean phrase meaning “hurry-hurry” that reflects that country’s fast-paced work culture. When Hyundai’s pali-pali pace in Ellabell outstripped Bryan County’s construction of its new wastewater treatment plant, the car maker sent its wastewater to an existing treatment plant in Savannah. But within a month permit violations forced the company to abandon that treatment and instead truck industrial wastewater out of the area, and at times out of state, as The Current’s Mary Landers reports.

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NEWS: ENVIRONMENT

Butterfly numbers falling

The number of butterflies in the continental U.S. has fallen by 22% over the past 20 years, with nearly one-third of the 342 species studied declining by more than half, as researcher Eliza Grames reports in The Conversation. It’s grim, but not hopeless. First, the losses in the Southeast are smaller than average at about 5%. Second, the study suggests that small conservation steps, such as planting native wildflowers, can make a big difference.

Luckily, we’re coming up on three scheduled native plant sales featuring local vendors in Coastal Georgia:

• Native Plant Sale: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. March 22 at the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens at the Historic Bamboo Farm, 2 Canebrake Rd., Savannah
• Victory Gardens’ Spring Botanical Bash: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. March 29 at 2500 Tennessee Ave., Savannah. Sale includes native plants, fruit trees, and bulk planting mix with profits go to nonprofit Loop It Up Savannah and its work creating school garden programs.
• Coastal Wildscapes Spring Native Plant Sale: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. April 5 at the Ashantilly Center, 15591 Georgia 99, Darien. Check out Coastal Wildscapes here for more information about native plant vendors and their inventory.

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NEWS: ENVIRONMENT

Beach volleyball coming

A state panel on Friday approved plans to alter the beach area at St. Simons’ Coast Guard Beach to allow Glynn County to move forward with a $7 M beach park renovation. Outcry against the plan focused on sacrificing dune area for a beach volleyball court and removing trees that provide habitat for migratory birds, but went largely unheeded, as The Current’s Mary Landers reports.

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NEWS: GOVERNING

Green and consumer bills wither

With Crossover Day in the rearview mirror, bills that haven’t passed out of at least one house of the Georgia General Assembly are on ice for now. They’re not entirely dead — they can come back this year by being attached to pending legislation, or they can return next year in their original form because it’s a two-year session.

Among the bills that hit this roadblock for now are two bills related to the Okefenokee Swamp and the plans to mine for titanium dioxide on nearby Trail Ridge:

• H.B. 562 would provide a 5-year moratorium on new mining on Trail Ridge. A three-year moratorium failed to get a vote on the last day of the 2024 session.
• H.B. 561, the Okefenokee Protection Act, would prohibit future mining in the same area. It was the fourth attempt to pass this legislation.

Both bills received a hearing but did not receive a vote this year.

Where does that leave the question of mining near the Okefenokee? Right in the hands of regulators at the Georgia Environmental Protection Division who have been reviewing a draft mining permit for Alabama-based Twin Pines minerals for over a year. There is no legal or regulatory deadline for the EPD’s decision.

Also in limbo are three data center bills aimed at protecting consumers from shouldering the costs of these energy-guzzling facilities:

• SB 34 would prohibit Georgia Power from shifting the costs of transmission and generation of power for large new data centers onto existing customers.   

• HB 528 would require data centers to state their impacts on community resources, like water and power to the Dept. of Revenue to inform all of the state’s tax-levying bodies of these facts in their communities.

• HB 559 would shorten the existing sales and use tax exemption for data centers’ high-tech data equipment by sunsetting it on December 31, 2026, instead of 2031.

Former Public Service Commissioner Bobby Baker wrote a December op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explaining how data centers could drive up costs for residential ratepayers. He also testified on behalf of SB 34. But as Monday’s edition of the Sierra Club Georgia Legislative News notes, big tech companies and Georgia Power have about 75 lobbyists at the Capitol.

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