STATE ERRED IN APPROVING EMERALD POINTE PERMINT, JUDGE SAYS CASE SENT BACK FOR FURTHER REVIEW

October 25, 2002, Atlanta — A judge ruled late yesterday that the state violated the Coastal Marshlands Protection Act when it failed to consider the full environmental impact on publicly owned marshes from the proposed Emerald Pointe development near Savannah. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance Russell, saying the state conducted an "artificially truncated inquiry," reversed the March decision of an administrative law judge upholding the Emerald Pointe permit and sent the case back for further review.

Conservation groups heralded the judge's ruling as a crucial step toward protecting Georgia's increasingly threatened marsh ecosystem. "The ruling sends a strong signal to the Coastal Marshlands Protection Committee that it must vigorously exercise its responsibility to protect Georgia's invaluable marsh lands," said Stephen O'Day, of Smith, Gambrell & Russell in Atlanta. O'Day is Senior Litigation Counsel with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the Center for a Sustainable Coast, the Altamaha Riverkeeper and the Sierra Club in challenging the permit.

The committee issued a permit to Emerald Pointe last year to build three bridges connecting three marsh hammocks, small upland areas that dot the coastal marsh. The developer plans to build high-end residences on the hammocks. The conservation groups challenged the permit, saying the committee failed to consider environmental impacts from the residential development and instead looked only at the impacts from the bridges. They also argued that, if approved, the permit would open a floodgate of other development permits for the 1,000 or so hammocks in Georgia. In recent years, pressure has increased tremendously to build on the hammocks, which were designated one of America's "most endangered landscapes" by Scenic America earlier this year.

In her order, Judge Russell said that "bridges are not roads to nowhere" and that "analyzing the propriety of issuing permits for bridges and activities in the marshes in isolation from the larger purpose of the activity or structure does violence to the intent of the Act." Judge Russell also held that the administrative law judge erred in saying the state was prohibited from considering the cumulative environmental impacts from future development permits.

The case now goes back to the administrative law judge for review of the evidence in light of Judge Russell's ruling, and possibly a new evidentiary hearing.