Marina in Camden will benefit many

December 5, 2005, The Brunswick News

Propose a marina for Coastal Georgia and you’d better duck quickly for cover. You’ll soon enough have an onslaught of critics – environmentalists, for the most part – coming at you from every direction.

It happens often in Georgia. It’s happened in Glynn County and now it’s happening in Camden County, where marinas and community docks are under heavy fire by three separate environmental groups.

Opposition always orbits the long-held notion that anything added to the environment – anything that is not part of the natural landscape – is bad. It’s harmful to the ecology and it’s harmful to marine life, environmentalists claim. In Camden County, they contend the 1,000-boat marina that is proposed would compromise water quality and, because of increased water traffic, threaten aquatic life, including endangered species like manatees and sea turtles.

Come on, that seems to be stretching things a bit. Besides, water traffic may increase anyway as more houses, more apartments and more condominiums spring up in Camden County, bringing more residents and more recreational boating enthusiasts to the Southeast Georgia community. All the marina will do is give boaters a safer place to tie up close to shore.

The proposed projects in Camden County have already been cleared by agencies that are paid for by taxpayers to keep a watchful eye on the environment. What’s being proposed is obviously OK with U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Neither objected to it. The project also has been approved by the Marshlands Protection Committee. It seems no one sees or foresees the harm that environmentalists envision.

Apparently, highly educated biologists in other states don’t see it either. Marinas in South Carolina and Florida, for example, are super large compared to ones in Georgia. They provide slips for thousands of sailboats, motor boats and yachts. The Ashley River in Charleston, for example, is filled with recreational vessels.

We are not suggesting that environmentalists stop what they’re doing in Georgia. What we do ask is that they make sure, absolutely sure, they are standing on solid ground when trying to alter or overturn recommendations made by biologists, people who are supposed to be in a neutral corner.

We are not in favor of doing anything that might inflict severe damage on the environment, and we expect the people paid by the state and federal government to feel the same way.

The only ones that seem to be benefiting from many of these battles are lawyers.

See followup guest column by David Kyler.