March 20, 2003

JUDGE SUSPENDS PERMIT FOR MAJOR MARINA EXPANSION
Cites potential environmental consequences to marshlands, habitat

For the second time in two years, a judge has suspended a permit for the proposed expansion of a commercial marina on a small island on the Mackay River due to the serious lack of information about the project's impacts on the surrounding fragile marshlands. On March 13, Glynn County Superior Court Judge Amanda Williams sent the Manhead Marina permit back to the Coastal Marshlands Protection Committee, which issued the permit in 2001, with instructions to "properly consider traffic, waste, and run-off concerns and their potential impact to the public interest."

"This project is clearly outside the boundaries of what most people would consider a reasonable balance of environmental protection and economic development. It is most certainly outside the boundaries of the Coastal Marshlands Protection Act," said Derb Carter, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, a regional non-profit organization which appealed the permit on behalf of local conservation groups.

The permit would allow Manhead Marina to add 109 boat slips, a 785-foot fueling dock, an 11,000-square foot dry dock and boat maintenance yard, a storm drainage system that would discharge directly into the marsh, a store and office building, a septic system, and a 42-space paved parking lot. The facility would cover an entire 1-acre upland area, called a marsh hammock, leaving no buffer between the development and the marsh. The permit also includes a lease for 10.5 acres of publicly owned marshlands adjacent the island.

Conservation groups have grown concerned in recent years over the increasing development of marsh hammocks, identified by Scenic America as one of America's 10 most endangered landscapes. In 2000, on behalf of the Center for a Sustainable Coast, Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club, Altamaha Riverkeeper, Glynn Environmental Coalition, and Residents United for Planning and Action, SELC challenged the Manhead Marina permit. They showed that the developer had failed to submit an adequate plan to handle sewage from boats and from the facility itself, and had no plan for dealing with traffic to and from the marina. An administrative law judge last year reversed the committee's decision to issue the permit. The Department of Natural Resources appealed that ruling in Glynn County Superior Court.

In her ruling, Judge Williams said the committee erred by not "fully considering all issues" and weighing such concerns as potential traffic and waste effects to the marsh and surrounding area when deciding whether or not to issue the permit. The ruling states that "it is not the legislative intent to narrowly construe the function of the committee so as to preclude them from considering the effects of an applicant's proposal as a whole." To find otherwise "would render the function of the Committee...ineffective and meaningless."

This ruling, coupled with another ruling from Fulton County Superior Court shelving a permit for three bridges connecting three remote marsh hammocks near Savannah for the Emerald Pointe residential development, sets a strong precedent requiring Georgia's Coastal Marshlands Protection Committee to change its practice of issuing permits without considering cumulative impacts to the marsh hammocks and surrounding waters, Carter said.