Change coming to Cumberland Island - slowly

AP/CHRIS VIOLA National Park Service resource manager John Fry tells the story of the one-room First African Baptist Church on Cumberland Island. The church was the site of the wedding of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette in 1996 and is the most popular spot on the island's north end. (Photo: Chris Viola/AP)

Fry mashes the brakes and curses under his breath as a pack of wild hogs scurries across the narrow dirt road, where spiky palmetto fronds claw at both sides of his National Park Service pickup.

It takes nearly an hour to drive the bumpy 13-mile Main Road on wild Cumberland Island. Fry's truck passes within inches of burly live-oak branches drooping overhead. Backpackers hiking the route are forced to step off and let him pass.

"We lose a lot of mirrors and windshields here," says Fry, the Park Service's chief resource manager for the island, nodding toward the twisted mount for the truck's missing passenger side mirror.

Getting around has never been easy on Cumberland Island, a federally protected wilderness off the Georgia coast that's larger than Manhattan. Reachable only by boat, and off limits to most wheeled vehicles, the island's inaccessibility made it the ideal spot for John F. Kennedy Jr. to ditch the prying paparazzi when he married Carolyn Bessette here in 1996.

For more than 25 years, government rules have required most of the 43,500 visitors who come each year to explore the island on foot. But under a mandate from Congress, the Park Service plans to change that early next year by offering daily motorized tours in spite of the tough terrain and cries of protest from environmentalists.

Fry says the tours will dramatically boost visitation to remote areas few tourists get to see.

Critics say the change threatens to spoil the island's primitive tranquility.

"The very last of anything is always the most precious, and there are no other places like Cumberland Island," said Will Berson, a policy analyst for the Georgia Conservancy. "We think wilderness is an important idea that is incompatible with running people in jeeps through the area."

Cumberland Island. (Images: New Georgia Encyclopedia)

Though wild horses graze on its marsh grasses, alligators lurk in its freshwater ponds and rare sea turtles nest on its pristine beaches, Cumberland Island also has a long human history.

Park Service ranger Pauline Wentworth says she often hears visitors, particularly senior citizens, say they wish they could take a bus or van tour.

Most, she says, have a particular destination in mind: "They want to see the church where JFK Jr. got married."

The First African Baptist Church, built in 1937 for black servants on the island, is a tiny clapboard building with a torn and faded rug on the floor and handmade pews with splintered edges and corners.

The Greyfield Inn shuttles guests there almost daily in the bed of a pickup. Those tours and monthly Park Service van tours were targeted years ago in a lawsuit by environmentalists.

A judge ruled the Park Service had no authority to shuttle visitors through the designated island wilderness. The inn, on the other hand, could continue giving tours with a special permit.

Congress intervened in 2004 with a law removing Main Road and two others from the wilderness designation that protects the surrounding forest. The same law ordered the Park Service to provide daily tours. Rep. Jack Kingston, a Savannah Republican, got the measure passed as part of a larger spending bill.

"The way it was, only an 18-year-old backpacker could walk the 13 miles up the trail to see some of these historical sites," Kingston said. "This island is not paid for by some of the taxpayers for some of the people. I don't think John Q. Taxpayer should have to walk 13 miles to see Plum Orchard."

Heated opposition has prompted the Park Service to move cautiously - too slowly, in Kingston's opinion - in the four years since Congress changed the law. It wasn't until September that the Park Service released a study outlining its tour plans.

The Park Service has been collecting the required public comments on the proposal from hearings in Atlanta and in St. Marys, the island's nearest inland neighbor. Berson of the Georgia Conservancy said it's unlikely any criticism will delay tours from starting in early 2009.

Several tourists visiting Cumberland Island on a recent weekend said they favor motor tours for disabled and elderly visitors, but on a much more limited basis than Congress has prescribed.

Bill Parsons, 55, of Cornelia, Ga., was showing friends around the mansion ruins near the ferry dock and recalling his hike to the secluded north end for a camping trip five years ago.

Cumberland Island. (Images: New Georgia Encyclopedia)

"I didn't see anybody for three days. It was splendid - that's what I came here to do," Parsons said. "I don't want it to be a theme park, no Disneyland. There's already that stuff."

(AP)

Environment group supports energy provision

Georgians would save more than $8 million dollars by 2020 under a new Senate energy bill. That’s according to a new study by Environment Georgia. The group says the provision is better for the environment by increasing fuel economy and requiring renewable electricity while saving Georgians money and decreasing oil consumption. The equivalent would be taking nearly 529,000 cars off the road, according to the study.

Early Co. power-plant opponents make their case

Blakely City Hall in town square,
county seat of Early Co.
(Photo: Dave Bender)

Environmental groups opposing construction of a power plant in southwest Georgia had their day in an Atlanta court today.

The coalition, which filed an appeal in June, includes a group of Early County residents opposed to a new coal-fired power plant there.

Justine Thompson, executive director of Greenlaw, says the plant will make grandchildren of local residents with property nearby suffer:

"Their grandchildren, that go to this property regularly, have respiratory illnesses, so they're very afraid of how the plant is going to impact the health of these children, and whether or not they're going to have to keep them indoors."

Supporters say the two-billion dollar plant is safe, and will bring tax revenue and hundreds of jobs to the area.

The Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings in Atlanta will hear more arguments against the facility tomorrow.

Click the green arrow below to hear this report.

Powered by Podbean.com

Click the green arrow below to hear an in-depth report.

Powered by Podbean.com

Groups seek highest protection for Georgia river

Two environmentalist groups are petitioning the federal government to recognize what would be Georgia’s first “Outstanding National Resource Water.” Environment Georgia and the Southern Environmental Law Center are seeking the ONRW designation for the Conasauga River in northwest Georgia. The ONRW designation gives the highest level of protection to rivers in the United States. The groups say the Conasauga’s headwaters support one of the most biodiverse river ecosystems in the nation.

Georgia sports for Monday, May 21st

A cold, rainy, frustrating visit for the Braves in New England over the weekend proved to not be that profitable---the Braves losing to the Red Sox in Boston Sunday afternoon, 6-3. The Braves won only once in the 3-game series, the 2nd game of a doubleheader on Saturday, a 14-0 victory.

On Sunday, a tough pitching start for Tim Hudson, who allowed 8 hits and 6 runs in 4-plus innings. The Braves offensively did have 13 hits, but could get little done against Boston-starter Kason Gabbard. He was a minor-league call-up for the game, and handcuffed the Braves in 5-plus innings: 6 hits and 0 runs with 7 strikeouts. Andruw Jones had the especially tough afternoon with 5 strikeouts.

The Braves finished their 10-game road trip with 4 wins. They are off tonight, and start a home series in Atlanta against the Mets tomorrow night. The Braves are 2-and-a-half games behind the Mets in the NL-East Division.


The A-T-and-T golf classic from Duluth, Georgia concluded on Sunday. Zach Johnson recorded the victory in a 1-hole playoff. He adds to his good season thus-far, after winning the Masters last month.

The NCAA Women's tennis championships from Athens will not include home-standing Georgia in the semifinals. The Lady Bulldogs lost to California, while rival Georgia Tech moved into the semis with a win. Tech is joined by Cal, Stanford, and UCLA in the semifinals which are today.

Environmentalists urge gardeners to adjust to global warming

The National Wildlife Federation, Environment Georgia and the Garden Club of Georgia have released "The Gardener's Guide to Global Warming."

The report is based on evidence showing many of Georgia’s common plants won't be so common in the next century, if climate change continues at its current pace.

Georgia's climate is becoming more like that of Florida, and, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, wildfires, droughts, and intense hurricanes will become more common nationwide.

The guide recommends that gardeners plan for these trends. For example, the federation's Sue Sturges says, Georgia will need a new state tree to replace the live oak.

"If I was a developer building a new development, I would not be planting the oaks right now," Sturges says. "I'd be choosing other trees in their place because the oaks are going to die out. It’s inevitable."

Sturges says magnolias will do well in Georgia's changing climate. She also recommends that the loblolly pines now burning in southeastern Georgia wildfires be replaced by hardier longleaf pines.

State gives final permit for coal-fired power plant

Georgia environmentalists are decrying the state’s final go-ahead for a coal plant in Early County west of Albany. Environment Georgia says each year the plant will emit greenhouses gases equal to 1.3 million cars. Greenhouse gases are blamed for global warming. Just this week, President George Bush ordered aides to draft regulations on greenhouse gases.

But the proposed plant does not meet national standards on pollution control, according to Environment Georgia’s Policy Manager Jennette Gayer. She says, "If you look at the permit that’s been issued this really is the dirtiest, old school, coal-fired power plant. They’re using standard technology that’s dirtier than plants proposed around the country. So we’re looking at ways that if we have to have a coal-fired power plant, make sure it’s the cleanest possible coal-fired power plant."

Environmentalists also say that while Georgia will suffer the brunt of the plant’s pollution, most of the power it produces could go out of state. The Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest plans to spearhead the legal efforts to stop the plant.