Green Room

• Georgia’s Board of Natural Resources plans to buy 1,564 acres linking two state-owned natural areas, Zahnd Natural Area and Crockford-Pigeon Mountain Wild-life Management Area, near Look-out Mountain in Walker County. The state’s Land Conservation Pro-gram helped pay the $8.3…

Could a cloud of summer smog have a silver lining? Something in the air has Georgia leaders doing right by the GreenRoom. • Fulton Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt-Cummings announced a landmark decision invalidating a permit granted by the State…

With few state mechanisms for enforcing environmental regulations in place in Georgia, the courts have long been the domain for fighting industries and entities that pollute rivers and raze forests, impact air and water quality or compromise private lands –…

Gov. Sonny Perdue has launched a new “Conserve Georgia” campaign to promote better use of the state’s natural resources. A website, ConserveGeorgia.org, provides conservation tips and a list of state agencies intended to help the average Georgian reduce his or…

• Linger Longer Communities, which is redeveloping Jekyll Island in partnership with the Jekyll Island Authority, revamped its plans in order to place a park and environmental conservation center on a site formerly planned for hotels and condominiums. Since the…

* The Georgia Supreme Court seems to have dealt a billion-dollar blow to the Atlanta Beltline, ruling that education taxes can’t be used for infrastructure projects (traditionally school systems can opt in or out of Tax Allocation District funding as…

• Voters in Forsyth County approved a $100 million bond for greenspace, parks and recreation on Super Tuesday. Cumming Mayor H. Ford Gravitt had opposed both the greenspace bond and the continuation of a one-cent SPLOST tax for road improvements,…

• “Stop I-3,” a civic group opposing a proposed highway through the North Georgia Mountains, has suggested letting the interstate be built after all – through South Carolina. The Savannah Morning News reports that Interstate 3, named in honor of…

• Georgia’s access to Lake Lanier for drinking water has been challenged by Alabama and Florida; nearly a quarter of the federal reservoir that has been permitted to Georgia is at stake. A 2003 decision ruled in favor of shifting…

• Georgia, Florida and Alabama agreed in November to work out a unilateral water plan by mid-February. The states’ fight over water resources has been given plenty of ink in Georgia Trend over its 17-year history, but it was the…