The former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently urged Gov. Brian Kemp to block a proposed mine near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge on her way out the door.
In a letter to Kemp dated Jan 15 – five days before leaving office to make way for the incoming Trump administration – then-FWS Director Martha Williams called the Okefenokee “one of America’s greatest natural treasures.”
Advocates for the swamp have been fighting Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals’ plan to open a titanium oxide mine along Trail Ridge adjacent to the refuge for several years. The project’s opponents are looking to a new Fish and Wildlife Service plan to expand the refuge by about 22,000 acres as a way to stop the mine.
