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Coastal Georgia regulators need to change a rule designed to guard the state’s marshes, which function a buffer in opposition to storms and rising sea ranges and an important a part of the coastal ecosystem. However advocates say the seemingly small change factors to a necessity for a broader evaluate of marsh protections.
The state handed a regulation to guard coastal salt marsh half a century in the past, which implies that now, although Georgia has simply 100 miles of shoreline, it’s dwelling to half 1,000,000 acres of salt marsh — the second-largest quantity of salt marsh within the nation and a 3rd of the marshes on the East Coast. These marshes take in the facility of sturdy storm surges and seize carbon of their grasses and dust.
So coastal advocates are particularly delicate to modifications within the state’s marsh regulation — involved that modifications to permit extra growth may erode protections, resulting in precise erosion of the shoreline itself.
However at a public assembly final week on the proposed change, state officers tried to assuage considerations.
“This modification will not be meant to roll again any marsh protections,” mentioned Jill Andrews, chief of coastal administration for the state’s Coastal Sources Division, or CRD. “It won’t change a factor throughout the precise Coastal Marshlands Safety Act itself. It isn’t meant, nor will it, fast-track bulkheads or shoreline hardening.”
Salt marshes exist alongside a lot of the nation’s shoreline, from New England to Florida, alongside the Gulf, and on the West Coast — however many have been degraded or destroyed by growth, business, and different human actions. Multimillion-dollar efforts are underway in lots of these locations to revive marsh habitat. Within the Southeast, coastal managers have launched a brand new regional initiative geared toward restoring and higher defending the marshes within the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida.
In Georgia, most constructions constructed within the state’s well-preserved coastal marshes want a allow underneath the marsh safety regulation, also called CMPA. That goes for big docks, marinas, or a size of bulkhead — a form of small wall alongside the waterfront designed to stop shoreline erosion of somebody’s yard.
These tasks additionally get a 50-foot buffer, a zone of dry land the place no constructing or paving is allowed as a result of it would have an effect on the marsh. The buffer line is measured from the a part of the mission that’s farthest from the marsh, recognized to regulators because the “upland part.” For a marina, that may embody buildings for dry dock boat storage, loos, or a store. For shoreline stabilization like a bulkhead, the upland part may solely be underground anchors that maintain the construction in place.
The buffer rule is what CRD needs to alter, as a result of the company says it may be an issue for smaller tasks.
On the public assembly final week, Andrews defined that the buffer for a bulkhead on a residential property may run by way of the home. In an instance she confirmed, the buffer encompasses most of a house’s yard. Meaning the home-owner couldn’t construct a shed, fireplace pit, or swing set with out particular permission from the CRD, which the company says creates a burden each for owners and for the company.
So the company is proposing a rule change to exempt small tasks from the upland part buffer requirement. Andrews and different CRD officers on the assembly burdened that shoreline stabilization tasks and anything constructed within the marsh will nonetheless want CMPA permits, even when the mission is exempted from the buffer rule.
However critics mentioned it’s time for a extra complete evaluate. As a substitute of the rule change, a number of environmental teams are calling for a stakeholder committee to take a holistic have a look at how tasks are accepted and what guidelines defend the marsh.
Talking on the assembly, Invoice Sapp of the Southern Environmental Regulation Middle mentioned bulkheads are significantly worrisome as a result of whereas constructing them can stabilize a shoreline within the brief time period, they will do long-term harm to the marsh. And although every mission is small, Sapp mentioned they will add up.
“There are going to be increasingly bulkheads constructed alongside the Georgia coast over time as the ocean stage rises,” he mentioned.
And advocates mentioned this allowing query factors to a much bigger concern: growth too near the marsh.
Josiah Watts grew up on Sapelo Island and now works for environmental group One Hundred Miles. He advised attendees on the assembly the marsh is sacred in addition to a protecting buffer for the coast, and the state ought to rethink permitting constructing near it.
“After we’re speaking about bulkheads, we’re additionally speaking about growth,” he mentioned. “Meaning that there’s building and constructing close to these areas on the coast and the marsh.”
The Coastal Sources Division is accepting public feedback in regards to the proposed change to marsh buffers till January 19.
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