One of my favorite quotes came from the late Milwaukee Braves slugger Joe Adcock who observed of his teammate Henry Aaron, “Trying to sneak a fastball by Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak a sunrise by a rooster.”
That line reminds me of the current effort by a group of politicians, bureaucrats, timber barons, tone-deaf mining entities and deep-pocketed special interest groups who are trying to sneak through an effort to drag-mine the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge for titanium dioxide in order that the world never runs short of toothpaste whitener. And in this case, we are the roosters. And we are watching.
Georgians across the state have strongly expressed their opposition and have made it clear we know what they are trying to do and we don’t approve. More than 150,000 comments opposing the project have been submitted to the Environmental Protection Division (insert oxymoron here) against issuing permits for woeful Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals to strip mine 582 acres of wetlands it owns adjacent to the Okefenokee Swamp.
This is our Okefenokee, not theirs. Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, who along with Gov. Zell Miller stopped a similar effort in 1996, said it best, “Titanium is a common mineral, but the Okefenokee is a very uncommon swamp.” Tell that to our politicians.
Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, says of the controversy, “Those are decisions that shouldn’t be made by political entities. Those are decisions that should be made by regulatory agencies.” Who is he kidding? What do we elect these characters for? Obviously not to protect our natural resources.
At least Gooch said something, asinine as it may be. As for Rep. Lynn Smith, R-Newnan, chair of the House Natural Resources Committee who has bottled up legislation in committee that more than 90 of the 180 House lawmakers signed onto that would have stopped or delayed the project, she is saying nothing.
It is disappointing that Gov. Brian Kemp hasn’t weighed in. He could make Operation Toothpaste Whitener go away in a heartbeat, just like Zell Miller did when DuPont tried the same thing Twin Pines is trying to do now.
Speaking of which, DuPont spun off Chemours in 2015 as a publicly-held company. Three years ago, Chemours signed an agreement pledging not to not to buy woeful Twin Pines, which the company had been looking into acquiring and to not to engage in mining near the swamp.
In February 2022, Chemours issued the following statement: “We have no previous, existing, or future interest in acquiring, and no plans or intent to acquire the project or the company. We have no intention or plans, now and for the foreseeable future (the next five to ten years), of doing business with Twin Pines, including buying from the project or any titanium the project produces.”
A number of investor groups, representing over $695 billion in assets under management, presented a resolution at the Chemours annual meeting on April 20th (ironically, Earth Day) asking them to make that commitment permanent. The resolution received 6.4% of the vote and while that seems like a low number, it was large enough to allow the sponsors to re-file the resolution next year and is being called a victory.
The shareholder resolution came during the same week that over 540 students, faith leaders, and conservationists from Georgia signed on to letters to the Chemours CEO and Board of Directors urging the company to permanently avoid having anything to do with mining the Okefenokee. Included in that effort were students from UGA, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Georgia Southern and Columbus State. They call themselves The Georgia Student Swamp Coalition. I love it.
I will have more to say about this at a later date but former Gov. Sonny Perdue, the Secretary of Agriculture in the first Trump Administration and currently chancellor of the University System of Georgia recently sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in support of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I must admit I didn’t see that coming.
Twin Pines President Steve Ingle said in response to Perdue’s letter that “it does not have any bearing on our permit application, nor does it impact our plans to mine for titanium and zirconium in Charlton County.” That response I did see coming. To misquote Marie Antoinette, “Let ‘em eat toothpaste whitener.” Hopefully, somebody will tell him what Joe Adcock said. Good luck on trying to sneak this bad idea past us.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139