October 16, 2026
Cumberland Island National Seashore
Attn: Proposed Lands Exchange EA
101 Wheeler Street
St. Marys, GA 31558
Re: Comments by Center for a Sustainable Coast, re DOI-NPS-124458, Voluntary Land Exchange Environmental Assessment (Submitted online via https://parkplanning.nps.gov/commentForm.cfm?documentID=153378.)
To: National Park Service
Our following comments on behalf of the Center for a Sustainable Coast parallel, and strongly support, the well-reasoned and well-researched position submitted by attorney Jon Schwartz in representing his client, Helene Horton Halsey.
Accordingly, we find that because the Environmental Assessment (EA) is critically erroneous, the NPS incorrectly concludes that the proposed land exchanges have no significant impact. To the contrary, as Mr. Schwartz elaborates in great detail, these exchanges and the new residential development they support directly violate the spirit and intent of the 1972 Seashore Act, which Congress passed in creating Cumberland Island National Seashore. [Public Law 92-536.] Under the explicit language of that law, the land involved in the proposed exchanges cannot be used as intended and NPS has no authority to initiate the exchanges.
In particular, the EA omits any reference to two previous plans adopted by NPS that directly conflict with the agency's rationale for making the proposed exchanges. Neither the 2026 Visitor Use Management Plan nor the 1994 Land Protection Plan – which determined that residential development in the “Natural Environment Subzone” would conflict with both the enabling legislation and the island’s General Management Plan – are acknowledged in the EA. Critical to these omissions is the absence of any reference to the management zone classifications applicable to the proposed exchanges, including prohibition of development that the NPS proposal contradicts.
The EA is administered under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires that all appropriate alternatives to the proposed action are thoroughly evaluated. Despite this, the EA failed to include any analysis of condemnation and federal acquisition of the lands in question. Yet, according to the NPS Land Protection Plan, NPS has already acquired 217.62 acres at Cumberland Island by condemnation and 580.29 acres by declaration of taking (LPP p. 12). Additionally, NPS’s rule recognizes condemnation to prevent “uses that would harm unit resources.” (48 Fed. Reg. at 21128.) Yet no evaluation of these methods was included in the EA as alternatives to the proposed exchanges.
The land-exchange proposal also violates law by presuming to authorize NPS to facilitate residential development when existing restrictions clearly prohibit it. The only development allowed at Cumberland Island National Seashore under applicable federal law is restricted to tourism concessions and recreation.
We are especially concerned about the proposal’s facilitation of county land-use authority over land which is intended to be exclusively under federal authority to ensure that the provisions of the enabling legislation are honored. Through the proposed exchanges, tracts 1b and 2b would forfeit federal control to county authority over land use. By doing so, adherence to the preservation of land in its primitive state (mandated in the enabling law) would be violated, since Camden County has no obligation to comply with it. This prospect underscores the vital importance of properly evaluating – and publicly reviewing – options for federal acquisition of privately held land within the national seashore through condemnation – which the EA failed to do and NPS seems to be inexplicably neglecting.
Furthermore, under federal law, NPS is not authorized to dispose National Seashore land for development. The NPS may accept non-federal land “in exchange for any Federally-owned property or interest under the Secretary’s jurisdiction that the Secretary determines is suitable for exchange or other disposal.” (As reference, please see the specific legal citations provided in Mr. Schwartz’s comments.) The EA fails to explain why tracts 1b and 2b are suitable for disposal but it never applies the mandate for preserving land in its primitive state to the lands affected by the proposed exchanges. The EA omits any comment on whether the federal parcels affected in these exchanges feature the revered conditions of land in a primitive state.
Considering the pivotal importance of disregarding these landscape characteristics as well as the other deficiencies outlined above, the EA is woefully unacceptable. Accordingly, the EA’s errors and omissions strongly suggest that the proposed land exchanges will indeed have a significant impact. To remedy this predicament and serve the public interest, we firmly believe that if the proposal is not suspended altogether, NPS must conduct a comprehensive environmental impact statement, as required under NEPA.
Submitted for the Public Record,
David C. Kyler, Co-Founder & Director
Center for a Sustainable Coast
912.689.4471