Environmental complaint received 2022-10-07 16:00:00
Source: Stanton Springs
Source location: Rutledge , Georgia
Complaint location: [Not entered]

Dear Mr. Williams,  

I’m contacting you in regulars to the fact there is ongoing grading in rural Rutledge Georgia as of this week billowing tons of red dust into the air. 

There was a recent court ruling against the JDA and the State regarding a bond they were requesting for RIVIAN to be built here. The court ruled with the citizens and against the State and JDA. 

In court, both the representative for the State and the JDA stated, without this bond, this project cannot go forward. 

We in opposition, mainly because of the environmental issues that a 20 million sq ft MEGA Industrial Auto Plant, 7 stories high on 2003 acres in a RURAL agricultural zoned area, will cause irreparable damage to our community. 

This grading, in spite of what both parties swore under oath to the judge about the bond denial “killing the deal”, is a slap in the face of the court and the citizens here in opposition. 

We are well dependent, this grading and the fact we are all well dependent here, is unacceptable! Water is already an issue here. My husband and I have in the past, had our own well go dry. We could not afford a drilled well so we had to pay for another dug well far from the dry well and the cost to run pipe back to our house, was as much or more than the well. 

Our Morgan County Comprehensive Use Plan, 2017-2036 states this land and all around it will remain agricultural through 2036. We citizens who live, work, farm, own small businesses here, are the ones who approved that plan. We depended on people, we had trusted to implement that plan through its full term and theirs, but they did not. 

Those on the JDA and Morgan County Board of Commissioners who were supposed to represent our area in this county, some developed their own legacy farmland (one, the former JDA chairman serving then, resigned, before he was paid a great profit, (20 times the going price per acre here) for that same legacy farmland, saying “because it wouldn’t look right if he was still chairman” when his families good name and legacy farmland was sold out and paid for. (All public record) 

The JDA threw this project to the state by letter overnight (again public record) when citizens were finally told RIVIAN was coming to Rutledge and it was already a “Done Deal”. There was no transparency! Everything done on this “closed door deal” for years, had been hidden in secret, under NDAs. The first any citizen (not involved) knew about this, was when the Governor announced on TV Dec 16, 2021 that RIVIAN (the company the state had already purchased the Industrial site for, near Savannah) where they have placed Hyundai recently. Instead RIVIAN (a risky financial EV start up) would be put on our legacy farmland zoned Agricultural, being actively farmed (the last hay was just cut recently).  

After the project was thrown to the state by the JDA, stating by letter “this project (they developed) is too big for us to handle, the Gov took it over for the State, the next day. 

The rezoning meeting, our ONE chance to express our environmental and other concerns, was cancelled! And the rezoning from agricultural until 2036, now for heavy industrial use by the State, the sign came down. 

We in Rutledge, with Hard Labor Creek State Park and UGA’s Observatory placed here intentionally, because of lack of light pollution, will no longer be able to operate and use their brand new telescope. 

Camp Twin Lakes where I volunteer in summers as “nurse Pam” for our special needs children, is in sight of this area. It like the Observatory, was placed here for a reason. Clean air and clean well water. The twin lakes the special children fish in and row in, not to mention the peace and quiet a camp like this needs, will all be taken away. 

Our abundant wild life including the American Bald Eagle that soars overhead after making a comeback here, will all be in danger! The barn swallow nests are abundant here. They build every year on my front porch and in barns and at houses all around. Deer are plentiful here along with many other species. Squirrels, including black fox squirrels, birds of ever color, we have it all! For now. The Georgia Audubon Society was already aware of RIVIAN early on in this process and we’re concerned about it’s impact here.

Please, I beg you, if there is anything the State EPD and/or DNR can do to help us here and save our legacy farmland and wildlife habitat, it will be most appreciated. The DNR building and fish hatchery are in this same area of the proposed plant, on Hwy 278 in neighboring Walton Co. We never had a voice, because there was no transparency here and we didn’t know anything of the magnitude of this plant, heading our way. Please be our voice now! 

I have a picture of the Bald Eagle in a tree on Centennial Road, taken recently by my husband’s cousin. A road with no exit or entrance now, about to be changed. It’s exit’s and entrances will feed onto a five lane access Road, running adjacent to I 20. 

I have concerns about all these things and more. I have concerns about where all this displaced wildlife will go. I have concerns about our special kids at Camp Twin Lakes who just returned this year after missing two years of eligibility to this camp, because of the Pandemic. 

That is their only time they are away from home, at no charge to their parents. A magical place where all their outdoor dreams can come true! A chance to spend a week with other children like themselves out of doors, with nature and do what other more able bodied children take for granted at summer camps. One on one ratio camper to counselor, volunteer nurses, firefighters, EMTS make this possible, along with our sponsors. 

During the past two years, with generous donations from sponsors, Camp Twin Lakes has doubled its size! Prepared to open the new section soon and serve twice as many special needs children as ever before. We celebrated our 30th year with MDA Camp there in July of this year. Please don’t let it be our children's last! They have fragile conditions such as muscular dystrophy, diabetes, cancer, skin disease and so much more. They can’t be exposed to contaminants in air and water, or the noise and light pollution. 

When we Rutledge citizens finally found out on TV RIVIAN was coming, we started attending as many JDA meetings as we could, trying to have an opportunity to express ALL our many concerns. 

At one of those many meetings we attended early on, the JDAs own expert admitted our water table, the loss of multiple ponds on this land as well as our three best natural streams to be covered over with dirt and buried under 2003 acres of concrete and asphalt, would all be affected. Greatest fear, our wells! The expert also said lakes and streams from here at HLC State Park, Camp Twin Lakes next door, on down to Lake Sinclair and Lake Oconee would be adversely affected. We heard him! 

No EPD studies have been shown to us. One meeting for citizen input on design and EPD issues, held in Monroe, Walton Co turned out to be only a “flack taker” meeting. The panel had no answers for our questions and concerns. No plan or designs to even show us for input on. No EPD studies had been done and no permits had been applied for. 

It seems once the State of Georgia took over the project, our legacy farmland, the need for normal ways for citizens to have any input, checks and balances here on zoning and other issues, were all taken away. 

After our prescient setting win in court denying the bond came down, it now seems nothing has changed! With the drought we are experiencing no consideration for us in that. Grading was to start on this past Monday, and it did! The dust is rolling, smell of pine sap is in the air, the noise pollution has begun along with the destruction and the erasure of 2003 of the most beautiful “true green” legacy farmland acres in Georgia, has begun. 

Please if you can’t stop this, and we’ve won what both parties said would “kill the deal” in court. Hiring the best EPD attorney we could find, recommended to me as one of five by our national EPD when contacted. We at the late notice we finally got, after the deal was done, have done everything agencies such as yours has recommended we do, but still the State started grading on their own previously set schedule? Again, as if we citizens and the courts and agencies that regulate these things, don’t exist! 

Can our state run completely over our rights and grade our way of life away? No matter how this was achieved and no matter what the court rules against them? 

We will lose all the green, all the trees, and all the wildlife habitat along with our only sources of clean water. We need that water for our wells we are dependent on here. Our pools that weren’t closed yet, already have a layer of red dust and reddened debris in the bottom. Our air is dusty red. Our hearts are broken but not our spirits. 

Rutledge isn’t known as “Small But Special” as just a slogan. We are special because of our community, our people and will remain so. A town with a population less than 1000 has opposition numbers 3400 strong on our #no2rivian website and Our Communities Oppose RIVIAN Assembly Plant page, on FB. Hundreds of the community filled a giant barn recently to hear from our lawyers, just before the ruling in our favor! 

If you want to see what we have, please visit these sites online or better yet, come here in person. I’d be happy to show you around! 

My husband and I own the oldest business in town, Rutledge Hardware Store built in1891 and has been in continuous operation since. We are the fourth owners of record. We have fought for the best for this community, for 42 years. We got Rutledge, as a town, on the National Register of Historic Places. 

We don’t even have a red light in town, we have a STOP barrel that the NY Times featured and called “Rutledge’s only sophisticated traffic device”. It was built by my father in law and his good friend and sanctioned by the DOT as their engineers had no solution for where to put stop signs on our corners of Main and Fairplay street. 

Rutledge Hardware sits on Fairplay Street. We live on Fairplay Road. This one move by local officials thrown to the State puts everything we have here in jeopardy. The JDA has a new sign at the exit off I 20 onto Hwy 278 on the Rutledge side. It stands exactly where I have a photo of my husbands grandmother Cassie tending her cows in 1930, on the historic Butler Place. Nothing done here by county or State, has been “Fair Play”.

That new sign with the JDA on it and put up by them, reads “East Atlanta MEGA Industrial Site”. There could not be a more unsuitable place or contrast between Grandma Cassie standing on that spot with her Jersey cows and now the JDA planting their sign there, announcing the plans they have for us. 

I don’t know about you, but to me that is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. The JDA announcing they are not finished here, they’ve only just begun. There will be no evidence of the generations of farmers who still farm here today. There will be no home for the Bald Eagle and the thousands of other wildlife that is so abundant here now. No barns for the barn swallows to build  nests in. There will be no gently rolling green pastures or farms or clean water or star lit nights here for our observatory. By erasing our history, they, the JDA are erasing our agricultural heritage, ALWAYS and forever.

Their excuse, to create more jobs. We need more workers here, not more jobs! We need real green pastures to lie down in, not a risky start up EV Auto Plant! Look at help wanted signs and unemployment rates for our county and state. Where will 7500 workers come from? Where will they live? There aren’t locals available for these new jobs or even enough locals needing work for the two jobs for every unemployed worker here today!

I’m sorry this letter is so long and got so personal. But I’m laying my broken heart bare for you. I’m doing this to see if anyone in this state truly cares about the environment that exists here now and the needs of citizens and Camp Twin Lakes for special children. The Observatory, the farms and the families who exist here now. I pray you do. 

Sincerely, 

Pam Jones, RN 
Small business owner 
Protector of all things Rutledge for over 42 years