Mining next to the #Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge would irrevocably damage this natural treasure. Yet #Georgia 's Environmental Protection Division just issued draft permits -- bringing the start of strip mining one step closer.
Imagine: Dump trucks carve deep ruts into once unspoiled #wetlands. Giant excavators rip through matted layers of ground-hugging plants.
The sound of bellowing #alligators is replaced by the industrial hum of the #mine 's new processing plant.
The Okefenokee is teeming with life: Cypress trees adorned with veils of long-hanging moss rise above shadowy waters filled with American alligators and wading birds like blue herons. The #OkefenokeeNationalWildlifeRefuge is a sprawling wilderness area on the #Florida - #Georgia border that protects over 630 square miles of biologically rich #swamps and #waterways.
But that could change if Twin Pines Minerals, an Alabama-based company, builds a mine at the edge of this wildlife refuge.
The company is planning to strip-mine titanium and other heavy minerals in a large area bordering Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Mining equipment will dwarf all of the existing vegetation. Habitat that's been protected for nearly a century will be destroyed. Wildlife will die.
We've already lost half of the world's wetlands in the past century. We can't let the largest backwater swamp in North America be next. If this mine gets the green light, the ecosystem will never be the same:
It would permanently change the swamp's hydrology by extracting water from the Floridan aquifer. A mine would impact the flow of water between the swamp and its surrounding waterways.
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