From her cramped seat in the middle of the Piper Cherokee six-seater plane, Georgia River Network Executive Director Rena Sticker pointed out the blond peat in the Okefenokee's glistening water below, the charred tree trunks from an epic fire and the expanse of wilderness uncluttered by buildings, roads or electrical lines.

Just about two miles east of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, the plane flew over a seam of higher ground called Trail Ridge where the Twin Pines Mineral LLC wants to mine for titanium and zircon. Georgia River Network isn't opposed to all mining, she said, but it is opposed to this mine.

"It's location, location, location," Stricker said ahead of flight with volunteer pilot Allen Nodorft of Southwings to survey the mining site. "It is right next to the Okefenokee, and Trail Ridge is part of the Okefenokee."

Twin Pines applied for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to move forward with the mining. The public comment period for permit ends Thursday, Sept. 12.

More study requested

The Okefenokee, with 630 square miles of unique habitat, it is the largest wildlife refuge east of the Mississippi. Stricker and many of the refuge's 600,000 annual visitors consider it a national treasure. One that is defined by its water.

"Digging a big mine on Trail Ridge which holds water in the swamp, and digging that mine lower than the level of the swamp itself, will change the swamp hydrology such that the water from the swamp would go toward that big hole," she said. "When that happens then you're lowering the water table."

The Georgia Conservancy voiced similar concerns in its comments filed with the corps Aug. 29.

"One-third of the mining site drains to streams that discharge to the Okefenokee, one of Georgia’s most precious ecological sites and an internationally-recognized treasure. The Okefenokee’s 438,000-acre biodiverse ecosystem is home to the headwaters of two notable rivers, the Suwannee and the St. Marys, and contains nearly 353,981 acres of federally-designated wilderness. Stephen C. Foster State Park, located within the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, was recently designated a Gold-tier International Dark Sky Park, wrote Savannah-based Charles McMillan III, the conservancy's natural resource director. "Trail Ridge plays a significant role in the hydrogeology of this area of Georgia; this saturated, low sand ridge acts as a sill for the eastern side of the vast Okefenokee Swamp."

He also noted that the mining site drains to the blackwater St. Marys River, home to several endangered species.

Twin Pines hydrogeologist Robert Holt, owner of Holt Hydrogeology and a professor at the University of Mississippi, said at the company's open house information session in St. George last month that the company has studied the hydrogeology of the area with 500 bore holes and 86 small diameter wells that monitor water levels. The data tells him the company can mine without harming the water flow in the Okefenokee.

Twin Pines plans to fill in the pit as it goes along, digging a trench that's 100 feet wide, 500 feet long and from 20 and 50 feet deep and advancing about 100 feet per day. It'll move lawnmower-fashion across the 1,268-acre big site.

"You're filling stuff back in; that allows the water levels behind it to recover," Holt said.

The mining won't connect the Okefenokee waters to those in the St. Marys River, he said, because the mining will maintain the natural divide that keeps the water on the west side of the ridge running toward the Okefenokee and that on the east side running east.

But the company's detailed hydrogeology data, including a three-dimensional computer model Holt is building, is not part of permit application. Both Georgia River Network and the Georgia Conservancy, among other groups, are asking the corps for a more thorough analysis of the possible effects than is currently planned.

"(T)he application still lacks essential information from the applicant," McMillan wrote to conclude the Conservancy's comment. "The Okefenokee Swamp is a unique ecosystem, and Trail Ridge is an integral element."

Separate from the corps' permit, Twin Pines is also applying for a water withdrawal permit from the Georgia EPD.

7-24-19 Final Application for Industrial Groundwater Withdrawal Permit by savannahnow.com on Scribd

Company president Steve Ingle downplayed the amount of groundwater the company would need for what he calls a "dry mining" operation. But the application submitted July 24 requests 4.32 million gallons per day average use from the Floridan aquifer, a major source of drinking water from Florida to South Carolina. That's more than is currently pulled from all other users combined in Charlton County.

"Our springs are failing," said Jim Tatum, historian and board member for Our Sante Fe River, who accompanied Stricker on the aerial tour. "Our aquifer is dropping. We're headed the wrong way. We have to drop our water usage."

Previous proposal and current mines

This isn't the first Okefenokee mining controversy. The DuPont Co. proposed mining on Trail Ridge in the late 1990s but backed off the idea after government and public outcry against it.

″You can study this, you can write all the documents in the world,″ then Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt told the New York Times, ″but they are not going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there will be no impact.″

DuPont eventually abandoned plans to mine titanium and in 2003 the company donated all 16,000 acres to The Conservation Fund, which in 2005 transferred nearly 7,000 acres to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an addition to Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

Dupont's efforts are still fresh in the minds of many Okefenokee advocates.

"I know 20 years ago the Fish & Wildlife Service said that the impacts could be deep and permanent and unrecoverable and I don't know why that would have changed now," Stricker said. "I don't think the technology is so different and I think that the threat is so big that there are just some places you don't need to mine. You can mine titanium elsewhere. This is our Okefenokee and it's so close."

From the air, Stricker pointed out another mine already operating in the area. It's Southern Ionics Mission South site.

"To me the biggest difference is they're not on Trail Ridge and they're 10 miles away from the swamp," Stricker said. "And they're not digging down below the water level of the Satilla River."

Another difference is that Southern Ionics avoided wetlands, impacting only 20 acres of wetlands out of 501 acres identified on its site. By contrast, Twin Pines is proposing to mine 522 acres of wetlands in this first phase of mining.

"Southern Ionics has done really good job," Stricker said. "I'm not against mining; I'm just for protecting the Okefenokee."