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Georgia Proposes Wider Private Dock Walkways in Coastal Marshes
The draft would let private dock walkways reach 6 feet wide and remove the total-area cap, which critics say will increase marsh fragmentation.
Summary
Margaret and William Sovey bought their marshfront property on Sea Island more than a quarter century ago, enthralled by its view of unspoiled saltmarsh. These days, they have to crane their necks just so to preserve that vista. On a recent hot, sunny morning, Margaret Sovey, 84, stood near a bank of windows to demonstrate. “I sit at the kitchen table, and I just look straight out. I don’t look this way anymore,” Margaret said, pointing south toward half a dozen over-700-foot-long dock walkways that slice through a raft of green marsh grass to Village Creek. “And you know, my blood pressure goes up every morning when I look out that window, and I see these docks and boat houses. It just galls me to have to look at this, and have this little bit of waterway left,” said the German-born Margaret, who along with her husband, a native of Hartwell and a Georgia Tech alumnus, moved into their custom-built house in 1996.