GUEST COLUMN | Outpost vote will follow Commissioners - forever. (SAR)

Hearing is postponed: greedy billionaire oligarchs HERBERT and JOHN PEYTON know they would lose.

Here's an eloquent column, from the Sunday, September 15, 2019 St. Augustine Record:


GUEST COLUMN | Outpost vote will follow Commissioners - forever
By Angela Coulliette / Atlanta
Posted Sep 14, 2019 at 1:26 PM
St. Augustine Record

This is in support of the Outpost located in Palm Valley to remain designated as conservation land. This letter comes to you from a person with education and scientific experience of how humans directly impact estuaries. This letter comes to you all the way from Atlanta, Georgia. “Save Guana Now” is becoming a movement beyond Palm Valley. I have a bumper sticker on my car and, whenever asked, I share the efforts to maintain the Outpost as conserved land.

The County Commission will surely acknowledge the numerous environmental, evidence-based negative impacts if the development moves forward. This letter is not intended to be redundant by repeating the scientific reports and facts of how development will significantly degrade the wildlife and increase non-point pollution (e.g. stormwater runoff), just to name a few of the impacts. This letter is to encourage commissioners to be honest with the facts and listen to the public.

If my name sounds familiar, it’s because my father is the co-founder of “Save Guana Now.” His passion to protect the environment and science in general, encouraged me to make public health and the environment my profession. My graduate research to obtain a Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was partially funded by the Rachel Carson National Estuarine Research Reserve program, as I worked within a North Carolina estuary. Guana Tolomato Matanzas (GTM) National Estuarine Research Reserve is one of the 29 reserves within this program, which would be better protected if the Outpost remains a conserved land. I visit my parents in Palm Valley several times a year, and we embrace the beauty that the area brings. The nostalgia of coming home and making memories with my child, my father’s grandson, is priceless — just like the GTM National Estuarine Research Reserve.

The Outpost development would directly impact the Guana Tolomato Matanzas (GTM) National Estuarine Research Reserve in only negative ways. I know because my Ph.D. studied the impact of human development on a North Carolina NERR. The idea of the Outpost being developed is appalling from an environmental, human health, economic and political perspective.

Your County Commissioners’ names will be forever associated with the final decision.