Company: Legal settlement puts Okefenokee mine back on track

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A company seeking to mine in Georgia near the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp's vast wildlife refuge said Monday that its project is back on track after a federal agency reversed a June decision that had posed a big setback.

Twin Pines Minerals said the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by the company by once again relinquishing the agency's regulatory oversight of the proposed mine in southeast Georgia near the Okefenokee, home to the largest U.S. wildlife refuge east of the Mississippi River.

“We appreciate the Corps’ willingness to reverse itself and make things right," Twin Pines President Steve Ingle said in a statement, calling the development “great news" for the project.

Scientists have warned that mining close to the swamp’s bowl-like rim could damage its ability to hold water. They urged the Army Corps of Engineers to deny the project a permit. But the agency declared in 2020 it no longer had that authority after regulatory rollbacks under then-President Donald Trump narrowed the types of waterways qualifying for protection under the Clean Water Act.

Trump’s rollbacks were later scrapped by federal courts. President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to restore federal oversight of development projects that under Trump had been allowed to sidestep regulations to prevent pollution of streams or draining of wetlands.

In June, the Army Corps notified Twin Pines that its prior decisions allowing the company to bypass federal regulators “are not valid” because a tribal government with ancestral ties to the proposed mining site had not been consulted. The agency said the Georgia project couldn't move forward without consultation with the Muscogee Creek Nation.

Twin Pines quickly sued the Army Corps in U.S. District...