Closed for Development? Jekyll Island’s Changing Political Ecology and Geographic Space

Abstract

Closed for Development? Jekyll Island’s Changing Political Ecology and Geographic Space Eric K. Spears The cover photograph for this issue of the Southeastern Geographer was captured on February 2, 2018, and depicts a blowout, or rather an erosional trough, in the dunes of Jekyll Island’s north beach, known as Driftwood Beach. This portion of Jekyll Island’s beach has encountered erosion for nearly forty years but hurricanes Matthew (October 2016) and Irma (September 2017) seriously comprised the dunes’ integrity. Irma washed over the beach dunes and inundated the adjacent salt marsh of Clam Creek. The sign depicting a washed-out bicycle path captures the after effects of these storms but also symbolizes a much larger issue on Georgia’s barrier island: how to measure geographic space within a fixed legal framework. Jekyll Island (N31° W81°) is a barrier island off the southeastern coast of Georgia. Jekyll Island is also one of Georgia’s most popular state parks and hosts an array of outdoor activities (beaches, marsh kayaking, fishing, biking and other eco-sports). Yet unlike other state parks, Jekyll Island is required to be self-sustaining through the limited economic development allowed by law. It has the typical regional barrier island geomorphology of a berm of dunes on the Atlantic shoreline followed by matrix of barrier flats, upland maritime forest, and salt marshes toward the continental side of the island. Jekyll Island is a mid-sized barrier island, measuring approximately 2,300 ha (5,700 acres). Jekyll’s elevation rests low along the South Atlantic Bight, measuring just two meters above mean high tide and marking one of the most western points of the Atlantic Ocean. Jekyll Island’s location on this coastal Atlantic recess also incurs a wide fluctuation of diurnal daily tides, ranging between 0.3 meters and 2.7 meters. The onslaught of tropical systems, such as Matthew and Irma, reflect the island’s susceptibility to moderate and strong storm surges. Changes to beaches and salt marshes demonstrate that Jekyll Island’s space evolves through the geomorphology of erosion, weathering, transport, and deposition. In fact, Jekyll’s southern beaches are growing due to deposition of longshore currents, while its northern beaches are eroding. The changing nature of Jekyll Island’s physical geography, however, has been one of political controversy over the past few years. For years, the Jekyll Island Authority (JIA), citizen environmental groups, and academics have argued over the actual size of the island’s geography. [End Page 321] A seemingly straightforward scientific measurement was marred in a politics of scale and production of space, which framed Jekyll Island’s contemporary political ecology and historical materialism. The cover image, Closed for Development?, symbolizes this recent struggle to command space, determine sustainable development, and maximize revenue. On April 14, 2014, Governor Nathan Deal (Republican) signed a law that legally codified Jekyll’s actual size and the limits to economic development on Georgia’s barrier island state park. Between 1971 and 2014, Jekyll Island’s development was governed by state law that 65 percent of the island had to remain in its ‘natural state’ and 35 percent of land could be developed (Associated Press 2014). The original 1971 legislation also recognized differences between land areas and marshland. In a February 2, 1971 letter from State Representative Mike Egan to JIA Director Horace Caldwell, Egan stated: ... I have instructed the Office of Legal Counsel to prepare a bill to provide that no more than one-third of the highland will be developed in any way and that Two-thirds of the land and all marshes will be left in the natural states (Georgia Public Records 1971). In addition, Governor Jimmy Carter determined in 1972 that Jekyll Island must be self-revenue generating in order to support its own tourism industry and environmental sustainability (Shannon 1972). The introduction of the ‘65/35’ rule and new economic management policies situated Jekyll Island within a liberal capitalist order that assumes nature is secondary to economic necessity. To borrow Swyngedouw words, Jekyll Island was placed in an ‘impossible sustainability’ scenario (Swyngedouw 2007). A state law meant to protect further development on Jekyll Island was contradicted by economic policy and practice. Unlike...