Trump rule eases effort to strip-mine near Okefenokee Swamp
When an Alabama company called Twin Pines Minerals proposed to strip mine for titanium just outside the fragile Okefenokee Swamp, environmental groups and even federal agencies went up in arms.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator said that it would “have a substantial and unacceptable impact.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also opposed mining on the edges of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. And Patricia Griffin, an Atlanta resident who made one of more than 60,000 public comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said “if this permit is approved it will be the death of the most beautiful place on Earth.”
But a new regulation imposed by the Trump administration in its final months in office could give a boost to the titanium mine proposal and ensure that weaker environmental protections get locked in before the Biden administration takes office.
That regulation, the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, went into effect June?22, redefining wetlands, tributaries and small ponds so that most builders and mining companies will no longer need federal permits or environmental impact statements. Now, 45?million acres of wetlands, an area bigger than the state of Florida, will no longer fall under federal protections.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/trump-rule-eases-effort-to-strip-mine-near-okefenokee-swamp/2020/11/25/84ed10ba-229a-11eb-a688-5298ad5d580a_story.html
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