1997-2000 Report
Center's Three Year Summary
Coastal residents are increasingly aware of problems within their communities:
- Reduced diversity and health of commercial and recreational fisheries, resulting in the decline of local nature-based jobs
in fishing and seafood processing, as well as 45 of Georgia's 85 fish-consumption advisories, primarily due to mercury contamination.
- Irrational and wasteful use of resources, such as groundwater, despite mounting evidence of limits on capacity and quality.
- Contamination of rivers and estuaries by inadequately regulated industries, negligent disposal of waste and wastewater, and various
chemically intensive land uses.
- A feeling that local "sense of place" is being overwhelmed by unchecked growth.
- Rising disparity between affluent and low-income groups, causing the loss of cultural diversity, historic connectedness, and
traditional quality of life.
- Perhaps most troubling, the inaccurate assumption that these problems are inevitable with the region's growth, and that the
public is unable or unwilling to protect our collective interests.
In addressing these problems for over four years, the Center has:
- Advocated for more effective state and federal procedures needed to monitor and reduce water-quality problems, including threats
from animal waste, development projects, withdrawal of river water for private economic speculation, and dredging operations.
- Encouraged the Governor and legislators in the General Assembly and Congress to fund critically needed coastal environmental
research and to use environmental criteria and risk assessment when investing state and federal funds in economic development.
- Proposed improvements in state procedures for making permit decisions affecting coastal resources, including the use of a peer
review process for ensuring (1) more complete assessment of proposed activities before they begin and (2) reliable monioring if permits
are issued.
- Hosted coastal forums for General Assembly candidates, elected officials, citizens, and environmental regulators, raising questions
about policies related to the accountability and reliability of environmental permitting procedures and policies.
- Organized and coordinated a workshop on fisheries issues in the intertidal zone of the Altamaha River, issuing a precautionary
position taken by scientists to withhold further environmental permits until adequate information is available.
- Developed information about the economic value of coastal Georgia's natural resources and reported it in newspaper editorials,
newsletter articles, and at various public forums, including press conferences, legislative committee meetings, and workshops.
- Worked to prevent short-circuiting the authority of Georgia's Natural Resources Board by urging our members to ask the governor
to veto a special-interest legislative provision.
- Assisted two new nonprofit coastal public-interest groups with funding and administrative setup.
Clearly, we have introduced crucial considerations into public discussion of coastal issues, which will have long-term benefits.
- Strengthening general understanding of the economic importance of natural systems will undoubtedly advance improvements in
environmental monitoring and research.
- Assisting local groups and stakeholders to voice their concerns about troubling trends will prompt elected officials to adopt
more reliable procedures of environmental assessment and regulatory enforcement.
- In addition, growing awareness of the long-term implications of current practices will surely cause remedies to be developed,
but this will require persistent advocacy.
The Center is building the capacity of our region's communities to reach goals for protecting valuable resources, in balance with
appropriate economic opportunities that are consistent with the natural, sustainable limits of environmental systems. We are expanding
and redefining "self-interest" to establish a broader, long-term vision based on the true value of natural resources and their functions.
Central to this effort is engaging the broadest possible diversity of the public through membership, outreach, and education.
Unfortunately, we do not have adequate information to fully assess the capacity or condition of coastal ecosystems, or to determine
the character and scale of existing and continuing threats. Moreover, the very coastal waters that are designated as "essential fish
habitat" and vital to our regional economy are also vulnerable to pollution originating from a vast area of the Southeast. This means
that new state and federal policies are needed to prevent the further jeopardizing of our coast, especially water resources and the
nature-based businesses that depend on them.
In the past decade alone, the release of pollution into Georgia waters has increased by more than 85%. Only about 10% of Georgia's
waters are sampled, but even from this meager data, 60% of those waters fail to meet federal standards for fishing and swimming.
Some 40,000 jobs in our region depend on the productivity, diversity, and quality of natural resources, yet every day decisions
are made throughout our watersheds without adequately evaluating their cumulative consequences on these very resources.
With your much-needed support, we can continue our important work required to effectively address some of the most formidable issues
that lie ahead by:
1. Providing guidance to landowners and local governments to help reduce nonpoint source pollution of tidal creeks and other coastal
waters, through best management practices, such as:
- protecting natural drainage, aquifer recharge, and water-retention features,
- decreasing runoff by reducing the extent of impervious surfaces on building sites,
- protecting water quality by retaining essential naturally vegetated buffers.
2. Continuing efforts to raise public awareness about the economic value of natural resources, the thousands of coastal jobs that
depend on them, and the principal threats to these activities.
3. Collaborating with various organizations to improve documentation and protection of environmentally critical areas, such as marsh
hammocks, which, if developed, will destroy wildlife habitat and further threaten coastal water quality.
4. Providing educational programs and materials to improve understanding about coastal watersheds, essential fish habitats, and public
policies for strengthening the monitoring and protection of critical natural resources.
5. Advocating support for urgently needed environmental research that is essential for improving the reliability and accountability of
analysis used in evaluating existing and proposed activities affecting vital natural resources.
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