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Rockets Over Cumberland Island National Seashore Raise Concerns

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Maritime forest on Cumberland Island National Seashore/NPS

A commercial "spaceport" proposed to be built just west of Cumberland Island National Seashore would send rockets over the seashore and its wilderness/NPS file

Cumberland Island National Seashore embraces a bucolic coastal setting on Georgia's longest barrier island. It's a place rich in human history, features settings attractive to both birdlife and loggerhead sea turtles, embraces dense maritime forests and ecologically vital salt marshes, and claims nearly 10,000 acres of officially designated wilderness.

It also soon could find itself directly beneath the launch trajectory of a commercial spaceport. The Camden (Georgia) County Board of Commissioners sees the spaceport as an economic boon, one that could both attract commercial space flight companies and tourists interested in craning their necks as a launch arcs through the sky.

Unlike other communities along Georgia's 100-mile-long coast that have developed thriving tourist communities on their barrier islands, Camden County can't fully leverage its barrier island economically because it's home to the national seashore and off-limits to tourism infrastructure. Perhaps because of that, the board of commissioners is focused on the spaceport for economic development. 

With the Federal Aviation Administration poised to release a final environmental impact statement on the proposed launch facility by mid-December, with a go-no go decision from the agency expected in January, interested parties ranging from the National Park Service and environmental advocacy groups to private landowners on Little Cumberland Island are worried that the agency won't sufficiently answer questions that they raised a year ago when the draft EIS was made available for public review.

The proposal calls for a launch facility that could handle "small" and "medium" rockets that could have "a gross liftoff weight of approximately 750,000 to 1,500,000 pounds with an approximate length of 200 to 250 feet (for the medium rockets)." It's a scenario that paints a picture of as many as a dozen commercial launches a year that would arc across the northern end of Cumberland Island National Seashore, where the seashore's official wilderness area spans more than 9,800 acres, with another 10,000-acre tract of potential wilderness. The trajectory cone also encompasses much of Little Cumberland Island, which is private property but within the seashore's boundaries.

The draft EIS shows the launch trajectory cone that would take rockets over the northern half of the national seashore and Little Cumberland Island/FAA

The draft EIS contains a graphic that shows the launch trajectory cone that would take rockets over the northern half of the national seashore and Little Cumberland Island/FAA

Cumberland Island was added to the National Park System in 1972. Accessible only by boat, the national seashore features unspoiled beaches and dunes, marshes, and freshwater lakes, along with historic sites. Twisting live oaks covered in resurrection ferns and spanish moss make up the island's maritime forest, shading an understory of sable palms and palmettos. Facing the mainland, the island gazes across mudflats during low tide and swaying marshes. Looking to the east, visitors step through designated pathways between rolling dunes to hit the sandy beach bordering the Atlantic Ocean. During low tide, sand appears to stretch in all directions.

It's this largely unspoiled setting that is at risk from the proposed spaceport.

"One of our biggest concerns is the impacts on viewshed, on soundscapes, on night skies, on the impact on wildlife due to those things and, of course, any type of potential environmental impacts from whatever debris or materials may impact the island," said Jill Hamilton-Anderson, the national seashore's chief of interpretation and education. "The FAA is doing their analysis; it’s due out I believe out in December. We’re anxious to see what that brings and if they’ve analyzed some of the things that we’ve asked about.”

While NASA long has handled space launches for the United States, recent years have seen the rise of private rocket companies that see a profit to be made in taking on at least some of NASA's workload, and commercial spaceports have surfaced to support those companies. 

Camden County is just one of the latest communities to explore the possibilities of a spaceport. Other entities in Florida, Texas, New Mexico have looked into spaceports, and Virginia is an official partner with NASA at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island.

According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, “the commercial space industry is worth $345 billion globally,” and while there might not currently be a need for commercial spaceports around the country, those behind proposals such as Camden County’s are betting on the future. 

But so far Camden County appears to be the only entity that wants to send its launches directly over a unit of the National Park System.

“We have nothing against rocket ships unless they’re being launched over one of the largest maritime wildernesses on the East Coast,” said Emily Jones, who works in National Parks Conservation Association’s Southeast office. “A place where people go for peace and quiet, solitude, and a place that has a huge number of historic properties, some of which are somewhat fragile that will be impacted by sound repercussions.”

Cumberland Island is one of the most important nesting areas for endangered loggerhead sea turtles in Georgia/NPS file

Cumberland Island is one of the most important nesting areas for endangered loggerhead sea turtles in Georgia/NPS file

Rocket launches are not without their failures. While the vast majority have headed safely into space, there have been some notable disasters. In October 2014 the very first commercial launch contracted by NASA exploded seconds after lifting off from Wallops Island. Two rockets launched by a private Japanese company failed to reach orbit, one crashing into the ocean in 2017 and the other exploding on the launchpad in 2018. A Chinese company's rocket exploded in mid-flight this past March.

Steve Howard, the Camden County administrator who has been out front in promoting their proposal, declined an interview. John Simpson, who handles public relations for the county, declined to be interviewed via telephone and didn’t immediately respond to a series of emailed questions pertinent to the project and its potential impact on Cumberland Island.

However, the county in July 2018 launched a website to discuss how “Space and Nature” could lead to a “Harmonious Marriage.” In it, the county pointed out that the Wallops Island facility is near “two national wildlife refuges, a national seashore, and extensive land holdings owned and preserved by The Nature Conservancy” nearby.

Understandably, the county also pointed to the Kennedy Space Center, which is near Canaveral National Seashore and the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. Launches from Kennedy have not adversely impacted the green, leatherback, and loggerhead sea turtles that nest on beaches in those areas, the website maintains.

“Spaceport Camden is committed to learning from NASA’s best practices for nighttime lighting and is already working with environmental groups and federal and state agencies to ensure our lighting plan will meet or exceed the practices implemented at KSC,” the site added.

And yet, not everyone believes the spaceport is safely compatible with the national seashore and surrounding islands. Kevin Lang, an Athens, Georgia, attorney working with a group opposed to the spaceport, pointed out during a phone call that the national seashore is visited by 60,000 people a year, and that there are privately owned inholdings within the seashore's boundaries.

The proposed spaceport would be located “approximately five miles inland, so it differs from all existing vertical launch spaceports around the country in that they’re all located within yards of the ocean," added Lang, whose family owns property on Little Cumberland Island.

"One of our biggest concerns is the fact that a lot of rocket failures do occur early, in the first stage of launch, and a rocket failure over the Cumberland Island National Seashore would likely result in a rocket that is almost fully loaded at that point with fuel," he said, envisioning the possible scenarios that could result from such a failure. “One would be an explosion in mid-air where you would have a fiery debris field that finds its way back down to earth, but another potentially devastating impact would be a rocket that loses thrust and that actually lands intact either on Little Cumberland Island or Cumberland Island and explodes on impact. Obviously, that would be a pretty catastrophic occurrence as well, both of which are within the realm of probability.”

The northern half of Cumberland Island National Seashore is a mix of designated and potential wilderness/NPS graphic

The northern half of Cumberland Island National Seashore is a mix of designated and potential wilderness/NPS graphic

There don't seem to be any commercial backers supporting the county's effort, according to the attorney.

"It’s a 'build it and they might come' type of project, where they hope to attain a license from the FAA for the site. The hope is that if they obtain the site license that someone will want to come along and use it," Lang said. "To my knowledge there is no commercial space company that is backing the project. And probably good reason for that. Launch insurance for these launches is fairly expensive from Canaveral and Vandenberg and Wallops Island, and those spaceports don’t have the complexity of launching over people and homes. So from a commercial standpoint, the project looks to be very challenging, and I think that may be the main reason why there’s not a commercial space company that’s put their name behind it.”

Interior Department staff, on behalf of the NPS, raised a number of concerns when it commented on the draft EIS in June 2018. Among those concerns:

• “Sky glow” from launches would be widely visible on the northern end of the national seashore and “not likely be limited to west shoreline areas only”;

• Launches would lead to adverse soundscape impacts to the cultural landscape of the seashore: “The character and intensity of the noise resulting from launches is in contradiction to the current setting”;

• “There is no mention of the potential for flaming debris to fall on land. What is the likelihood for this type of catastrophic event and the associated impacts?”

• The DEIS lacked sufficient analysis of how launches might affect wildlife;

• The DEIS failed to mention “what type and volume of materials can be expected to discharge from rockets?”;

• The DEIS failed to accurately project the “frequency of delays, scrubs, and reschedules” of launches that could in turn impact the seashore and its visitors.

Other concerns touch on whether visitors to Cumberland Island would have to leave the park during launch windows; would the Park Service be responsible for emergency response in the event of a launch failure; would the Park Service be responsible for seeing visitors safely escorted off the island; would visitors who reserved backcountry trips months in advance have to cancel them if a launch date coincided with their trips; is it possible to mitigate a launch’s audible impacts on official wilderness; how would launches impact rookeries on the island?

How those and other concerns raised by the Park Service, as well as advocacy groups such as NPCA, Wilderness Watch, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and Center for a Sustainable Coast, are being addressed by FAA remains to be seen. The agency has been working quietly on the final EIS since last year and its answers are not expected before the final document is issued in December. Once the final EIS is issued, it's unclear whether the FAA would respond to issues opponents don't feel have been adequately addressed.

“If they do not, then I think it behooves us to say to FAA that this is inadequate," said Jones.

American alligators are among the many animal species found at Cumberland Island National Seashore/NPS file

American alligators are among the many animal species found at Cumberland Island National Seashore/NPS file

“Our draft comments were either asking for clarification or requesting that their final EIS address some of our questions. The fact that in December it may come out with us having not seen it is a concern,” said Hamilton-Anderson at the seashore. “What I can’t speak to is I’m not sure if those at the FAA have been communicating with the Park Service on the regional level, which may be the case and I’m not aware of it.”

Steven Wright, a regional environmental planner for the Park Service in its Atlanta office, did not respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment, and the region’s communications staff was unable to make him available.

“There are a lot of questions that I know they didn’t adequately address in that draft, and so how they’ve gone about securing the answers to those, what kind of negotiations have been made, we’ll find out on December 16,” said NPCA’s Jones. “It will be our Christmas present from Camden County.”

Traveler footnote: To hear Traveler's view on the proposed spaceport, listen to today's podcast, Episode 41.

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I'm very pro-spaceport as I feel it will benefit Georgia economically and will provide a national need as space launches become much more common and needed to advance our space technology.  You only need to look back at the history of airflight and the rapid need to add airports to understand how the number of spaceports will need to increase rapidly with space tchnology advances.  

From an environmental perspective creating a spaceport in Camden County will actually ensure that the natural beauty surrounding the spaceport will be permanently protected as a a natural barrier.  The area surrounding Kennedy Space Center is the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge which is a model for what the area surrounding Spaceport Camden could be.  A vast spread of wilderness forever protedited not just because the government has deemed it a nature preserve but because it serves a duel purpose as a barrier to rocket launches.  

Thus by providing a launch barrier the surrounding wilderness ensures its future survival as a nature preserve that can not be reclassified in the future to be exploited for development.  I understand how people can feel creating a spaceport will intrude on the wilderness, but thinking hundreds of years into the future and not just fifty years provides true long-term land preservation.  The lands surrounding a spaceport will always be a protected wilderness as the spaceport itself will protect them from potential future development which could otherwise occur with a simple future government reclassification of land use.


Mr. Gooch makes the typical speculative promises about the potential of Spaceport Camden. He seems to be unaware that a national resource is at risk with every rocket launch. Cumberland Island National Seashore is unique. Spaceports are not. In fact, spaceports are situated by the ocean because rockets fail with alarming frequency. Considering that there have been only three dozen or so launches in the US this year, the three rocket explosions would have contaminated Georgia's tidal marshes and wetlands. But none have impacted public or private lands because every one of those explosions occurred over spaceport property or the ocean. Some of the accidents have been so secretive that the extent of environmental damage is unknown. Rest assured, none impacted a National Seashore or National Park, because, until Spaceport Camden, no trajectories have been over one.

Mr. Gooch makes the mistake of thinking that everything can be justified in the chase for the holy grail of economic development. That perhaps comes from having a low appreciation for the special things like Cumberland's Wilderness, Northern Right whales, pristine, undeveloped beaches, an ancient maritime forest, witnessing sea turtle hatches, and the irreplaceable historic sites.

The justification Mr. Gooch uses is typical of those looking to further their economic development interests on the backs and heads of folks living in or visiting Camden County. He even promotes the spaceport on his business' webpage where he's hustling future spaceport-related services. Plug for Mr. Gooch: https://filmbuildings.com/lunar-buildings

Cumberland Island National Seashore struggles to stay "A Place Apart" without the nuisance, the cost to taxpayers, and the risk of the occasional rocket crash. Some things are worth keeping just the way they are.


revised to include additional thoughts.

 

I am very pro-spaceport as I feel it will benefit Georgia economically and will provide a national need as space launches become much more common and needed to advance our space technology.  You only need to look back at the history of airflight and the rapid need to add airports to understand how the number of spaceports will need to increase rapidly with space technology advances. I also feel nature can coexist and actually benefit in the long term from Spaceport Camden.

 

 

From an environmental perspective creating a spaceport in Camden County will actually ensure that the natural beauty surrounding the spaceport will be permanently protected as a a natural barrier.  For example, the area surrounding the Kennedy Space Center is the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge which is a model for what the area surrounding Spaceport Camden could be.  A vast spread of wilderness forever protedited not just because the government has deemed it a nature preserve but because it serves a duel purpose as a barrier to rocket launches. Working closely with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

 

By providing a launch barrier, the surrounding wilderness ensures its future survival as a nature preserve that can not be reclassified in the future to be exploited for development.  I certainly understand how people can feel creating a spaceport will intrude on wilderness, but if you think hundreds of years into the future and not just fifty years coexisitance of nature and a spaceport will provide true long-term land preservation.  The lands surrounding a spaceport will always be a protected wilderness as the spaceport itself will protect them from potential future development which could otherwise occur with a simple future government reclassification of land use.

 

 

Furthermore, the long range focus of space companies like Blue Origin and others is on accessing outer space for mining and collecting raw materials to potentially replace over exploiting our planet Earth. The very spaceports which some people feel are intruding on nature preservation could ultimately lead to the nature preservation of our entire planet.  For all of these reasons I feel that spaceports and nature, like Spaceport Camden and the Georgia barrier islands, need to coexist in order to achieve an ultimate goal of long term nature preservation.


I just finished reading an article about this in the New York Times.  This all sounds vaguely familiar to me and it all comes down to money and greed.  We're losing animal and plant species at a rapid rate and now another beautiful place will be placed at risk.  Just like countless other projects (ex. Exxon Valdez) in beautiful places.....where there are lots of promises and limited back-up plans if something should go wrong.  Can we please stop now and focus on the beautiful things we have left.  I could never afford to stay on the island, but it sounds so wonderful.  Please let's protect this place and the animals and trees that  inhabit it, along with the people that wish to protect it.   Thank You


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