notes

(1) The Okefenokee is a prospective UNESCO World Heritage Site and place of ancestral significance to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

(2) United States, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization National Centers for Environmental Information, State of the Climate: Drought for Annual 2017 (Washington, D.C.: NOAA, 2018), https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/.

(3) Cynthia S. Loftin, Margaret Q. Guyette, and Paul R. Wetzel, “Evaluation of Vegetation-Fire Dynamics in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Georgia, USA, with Bayesian Belief Networks,” Wetlands 38, (2018): 821.

(4) Neal E. Flanagan, et al., “Low-Severity Fire as a Mechanism of Organic Matter Protection in Global Peatlands: Thermal Alteration Slows Decomposition,” Global Change Biology 26, no. 7 (2020): 1-17.

(5) T.R. Muraleedharan, Miroslav Radojevic, Allan Waugh, and Anthony Caruana, “Emissions from the Combustion of Peat, An Experimental Study,” Atmosphere and Environment 34, no. 18 (2000): 3033-3035.

(6) Guillermo Rein, “Smoldering-Peat Megafires: The Largest Fires on Earth,” in Coal and Peat Fires: a Global Perspective, ed. Glenn B. Stracher, Anupma Prakash, and Guillermo Rein (Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2010), 1-11.

(7) Cynthia S. Loftin, Margaret Q. Guyette, and Paul R. Wetzel, “Evaluation of Vegetation-Fire Dynamics,” 830.

(8) Ibid.

(9) Z. C. Yu, “Northern Peatland Carbon Stocks and Dynamics: A Review,” Biogeosciences 9, no. 10 (2012): 4071-4085.

(10) James Holden, "Peatland Hydrology and Carbon Release: Why Small-scale Process Matters," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 263 (2005): 2892.

(11) Heavy metals in peat are also mobilized by erosion and runoff, and sea-level rise. Lead and other industrial particulates are entering rivers of the U.K.’s Pennines due to eroding peatland in the Lake District—and higher summer temperatures and stormier winters may continue driving the trend. Marshes in New York’s Jamaica Bay are losing mineral sediment because of urbanization and sea-level rise, and heavy metals threaten to escape.

(12) Joji Abraham, Kim Dowling, and Singarayer Florentine, “Risk Of Post-fire Metal Mobilization Into Surface Water Resources: A Review,” Science of the Total Environment 599-600 (2017): 1740-1755.

(13) Bagie M. George and Darold Batzer, "Spatial and Temporal Variations of Mercury Levels in Okefenokee Invertebrates: Southeast Georgia," Environmental Pollution 152, no. 2 (2008): 484-490.

(14) Brian P. Jackson, Parley V Winger, and Peter J Lasier, "Atmospheric Lead Deposition to Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia, USA," Environmental Pollution 130, no. 3 (2004): 445-451.

(15) Greg R. Masson and Mark D. Bowers, “Mercury and Lead Levels in Fish of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, (1995): 2-6.

(16) Heikki Simola and Martin Lodefiius, “Recent Increase In Mercury Sedimentation In A Forest Lake Attributable To Peatland Drainage,” Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 29, no. 3 (1982): 298–305.

(17) Regional models project the Southeast will see an increase in average temperature throughout the remainder of the 21st century, resulting in higher evapotranspiration and increased drought risk. See this factsheet: https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/droughtfactsheet_r8_022018_508_0.pdf.

(18) Willie Jamaal Wright, "The Morphology of Marronage," Annals of the American Association of Geographers 110, no. 4 (2020): 1139.

(19) The Great Dismal—part National Wildlife Refuge (112,000 acres), part State Park (16,000 acres)—has 50,000 acres of inflowing watersheds and is the site of the headwaters of five coastal rivers: the Nansemond, Elizabeth, Northwest, Pasquotank, and Perquimans. The Suffolk Scarp to the side of the Great Dismal marks the shoreline 125,000 years ago while the Trail Ridge is the equivalent down south.

(20) William Byrd and E. G Swem, Description Of The Dismal Swamp And A Proposal To Drain The Swamp. (Metuchen: C.F. Heartman, 1922), from https://www.loc.gov/item/22022884/.

(21) Ibid.

(22) When faced with forced removals, some Tuscarora remained in the Alligator River Swamp, and some Creeks who stayed in the Southeast met at the swamps of South Georgia. Muscogee (Creek) even translates to “Dwellers in the Swamp”. Seminoles lived in the Okefenokee into at least the 19th century. See dissertation for further detail.

(23) Washington is also believed to have sponsored investigations of the Okefenokee.

(24) L. Eric Hinesley, “Research at N.C. State University Related to Regeneration of Atlantic White Cedar (AWC) and Baldcypress,” (Raleigh: N. C. State University, 2002.)

(25) Miriam Jones, Debra A. Willard, Kristen Hoefke, Frederic C. Wuster, and Karen Balentine, "Quantifying Peat Carbon Loss From Centuries Of Drainage in the Great Dismal Swamp, USA" (paper presented at the AGU Fall Meeting 2020, 1-17 December 2020), https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm20/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/680759.

(26) United States, U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service, Southeast Region, Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan, (Atlanta: U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service, 2006), https://www.fws.gov/southeast/planning/PDFdocuments/OkefenokeeFinalCCP/Okefenokee%20Final%20CCP%20edited%20.pdf.

(27) Ibid.

(28) Robert A. Mickler, David P. Welch, and Andrew D. Bailey, “Carbon Emissions During Wildland Fire on a North American Temperate Peatland,” Fire Ecology 13, no. 1 (2017): 34-57.

(29) Marjorie G. Winkler and Calvin B. DeWitt, "Environmental Impacts of Peat Mining in the United States: Documentation for Wetland Conservation," Environmental Conservation 12, no. 4 (1985): 317-330.

(30) United States, U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service, Southeast Region, Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan.

(31) “Executive Order 13817 of December 20, 2017, A Federal Strategy To Ensure Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals,” Code of Federal Regulations, title 3 (2017): 60835, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-12-26/pdf/2017-27899.pdf.

(32) Bradley S. Van Gosen, Titanium Mineral Resources In Heavy-Mineral Sands In The Atlantic Coastal Plain Of The Southeastern United States (Reston: USGS, 2018), 8.

(33) “Earth MRI Funds Critical Minerals Projects in Twenty-One States,” U.S. Geological Service, accessed December 1, 2020, https://www.usgs.gov/news/earth-mri-funds-critical-minerals-projects-twenty-one-states-0?qt-news_science_products=4#qt-news_science_products.

(34) “Why Is Earth MRI Needed?,” U.S. Geological Service, accessed December 1, 2020, https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/earthmri/science/why-earth-mri-needed?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects.

(35) Bradley S. Van Gosen, Titanium Mineral Resources In Heavy-Mineral Sands In The Atlantic Coastal Plain Of The Southeastern United States, 13.

(36) “Global Titanium Dioxide Market Report 2019-2020 & 2030,” Yahoo! Finance, November 11, 2020, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-titanium-dioxide-market-report-095300880.html?guccounter=1.

(37) GreenLaw, “Public Outcry Against Proposed Mine Continues to Grow, Mining Company Withdraws Permit Application,” News release, (August 27, 2014).

(38) United States, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Regulatory Division, Joint Public Notice: Application SAS-2013-00561 (Savannah: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2010), https://www.sas.usace.army.mil/Portals/61/docs/Regulatory/publicnotices/SAS-2013-00561-Wayne-0712%20(RLS).pdf?ver=5YO3kNgC6ndAgEMz51XPcg%3D%3D.

(39) United States, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Regulatory Division, Joint Public Notice: Application SAS-2018-00554 (Savannah: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2018), https://www.sas.usace.army.mil/Portals/61/docs/SAS-2018-00554-Charlton-0413-HAR%20.pdf?ver=yj52HLmipjoV1NIL3BcMAg%3d%3d.

(40) “Mining Near The Okefenokee,” Georgia Conservancy, accessed December 1, 2020, https://www.georgiaconservancy.org/okefenokee/mining.

(41) One interviewee informed me that TPM had been operating a mine with Chemours in Starke, FL that just shut down: “They were going back through the mine tailings to get what was left. As far as I know, they're still under a consent order for permit violations there. They wanted to finish up in Starke and then move everything up to St George. That's why they were pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing to get this through.”

(42) Mary Landers, “Business Giant near Okefenokee Refuge Fights Back against Planned Mining,” Florida Times-Union, September 21, 2020, https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/environment/2020/09/21/business-giant-near-okefenokee-refuge-fights-back-against-planned-mining/5854473002/.

(43) For example, the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota’s Iron Range moved forward in 2020 after a decade of fighting on the part of tribal communities and environmental groups over damage to wetlands.

(44) Rebecca C. Rooney, Suzanne E. Bayley, and David W. Schindler, “Oil sands mining and reclamation cause massive loss of peatland and stored carbon,” PNAS 109, no. 13 (2012): 4933-4937.

(45) The Southern Environmental Law Center, Comment Letter on Permit Application No. SAS-2018-00554 (September 12, 2019), https://www.southernenvironment.org/uploads/words_docs/Twin_Pines_-_Comments_-_FINAL.pdf.

(46) Ibid.

(47) “Southern Ionics Minerals Is Part of The Chemours Company,” The Chemours Company, accessed December 1, 2020, https://www.chemours.com/en/about-chemours/global-reach/southern-ionics-minerals.

(48) United States, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Regulatory Division, Joint Public Notice: Application SAS-2012-01042 (Savannah: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2015), https://www.sas.usace.army.mil/Portals/61/Users/251/87/1787/20151222-SAS-2012-01042-Charlton-20160121-JML.pdf?ver=mJ-T5WUghyqz9lzpgoVxzg%3D%3D.

(49) United States, U.S. Geological Survey, Geologic Evolution of Trail Ridge Eolian Heavy-Mineral Sand and Underlying Peat, Northern Florida, Eric Force and Fredrick J. Rich. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1499, (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1989), https://doi.org/10.3133/pp1499.

(50) Email message to author, November 20, 2020.

(51) Federal Register, “The Navigable Waters Protection Rule: Definition of ‘Waters of the United States,’” April 21, 2020. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/04/21/2020-02500/the-navigable-waters-protection-rule-definition-of-waters-of-the-united-states.

(52) Researchers have expanded upon the NHD using Lidar, but building Lidar-derived digital elevation models requires care since bridges, roads, and other structures act as virtual dams (“digital dams”), impeding terrain analysis algorithms from routing the flow of water in a model.

(53) United States, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Overview of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, (Washington, D.C., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2020), https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-01/documents/nwpr_fact_sheet_-_overview.pdf.

(54) Bagie M George and Darold Batzer, "Spatial and Temporal Variations of Mercury Levels in Okefenokee Invertebrates: Southeast Georgia," 484-490.

(55) J.K. Coleman Wasik et al, "The Effects of Hydrologic Fluctuation and Sulfate Regeneration on Mercury Cycling in an Experimental Peatland," Biogeosciences 120, no. 9 (2015): 1697-1715.

(56) Susannah Kitchens and Todd C. Rasmussen, "Hydraulic Evidence for Vertical Flow From Okefenokee Swamp to the Underlying Floridian Aquifer in Southeast Georgia," 1995.

(57) “Myths v Facts,” Twin Pines Minerals, LLC, last modified 2019, https://twinpinesmineralscharlton.com/myths-v-facts/.

(58) Georgia Historical Society, ‘A Sketch of the Creek Country,’ in Collections of the Georgia Historical Society Vol. III, (New York: William Van Norden Printer, 1873): 19-22.

(59) Dilip da Cunha, “The Jungle’s Call,” Harvard Design Magazine, 2018, http://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/issues/45/the-jungles-call.

(60) Astrida Neimanis, “Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water” in: Undutiful Daughters: Mobilizing Future Concepts, Bodies and Subjectivities in Feminist Thought and Practice, eds. Henriette Gunkel, Chrysanthi Nigianni and Fanny Söderbäck. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 85-99.

(61) Marjorie G. Winkler and Calvin B. DeWitt, “Environmental Impacts of Peat Mining in the United States: Documentation for Wetland Conservation,” 323.

(62) Aimlee D. Laderman, “Why Does The Freshwater Genus Chamaecyparis Hug Marine Coasts?” in: Atlantic white cedar restoration ecology and management: Proceedings of a symposium, eds. Robert B. Atkinson, Robert T. Belcher, D.A. Brown, and James E. Perry (Newport News, VA: Christopher Newport University, 2003), 1-30.

(63) Robert B. Atkinson, Timothy E. Morgan, Robert T. Belcher, and D.A. Brown, “The Role of Historical Inquiry in the Restoration of Atlantic White Cedar Swamps,” in: Atlantic white cedar restoration ecology and management: Proceedings of a symposium, eds. Robert B. Atkinson, Robert T. Belcher, D.A. Brown, and James E. Perry (Newport News, VA: Christopher Newport University, 2003), 43-53.

(64) Ibid.

(65) “Plant Guide: Bald Cypress,” U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, 2010, https://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/pg_tadi2.pdf.

(66) Bryan Parthum, Emily Pindilli, and Dianna Hogan, “Benefits Of The Fire Mitigation Ecosystem Service In The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia, USA,” Journal of Environmental Management 203 (2017): 376.

(67) Yuqi Hu, Nieves Fernandez-Anez, T. E. L. Smith and Guillermo Rein, “Review Of Emissions From Smouldering Peat Fires And Their Contribution To Regional Haze Episodes,” International Journal of Wildland Fire 27 (2018): 295.

(68) Susan L. Stone, Wayne E. Cascio, Johnathan Vasu Kilaru, and Martha Sue Carraway, “Peat Bog Wildfire Smoke Exposure in Rural North Carolina Is Associated with Cardiopulmonary Emergency Department Visits Assessed through Syndromic Surveillance,” Environmental Health Perspectives 119, (2011): 1417.

(69) Arthur D. Cohen, ‘Petrography And Paleoecology Of Holocene Peats From The Okefenokee Swamp-Marsh Complex Of Georgia,’ Journal of Sedimentary Research 44, no. 3 (1974): 716–726.

(70) Miriam C. Jones, “Vegetation and Carbon Storage Changes Following >200 Years of Drainage in a Temperate Peat Swamp” (forthcoming).

(71) Adam Watts, and Leda Kobziar, 'Smoldering Combustion and Ground Fires: Ecological Effects and Multi-Scale Significance.' Fire Ecology 9, no. 1 (2013): 128.

(72) Joseph Holden, 'Peatland Hydrology and Carbon Release: Why Small-Scale Process Matters,' 2909.

(73) Researcher in discussion with the author, July 2020.

(a) Stacey Alaimo, "Trans-corporeality," in Posthuman Glossary, eds. Rosi Braidotti and Maria Hlavajova (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 435.

(b) Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 8.

(c) Timothy Choy and Jerry Zee, 'Condition—Suspension', Cultural Anthropology 30, no. 2 (2015): 210. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.14506/ca30.2.04.

(d) Ibid.

(e) Astrida Neimanis and Rachel Loewen Walker, "Weathering: Climate Change and the 'Thick Time' of Transcorporeality," Hypatia 29, no. 3 (2013): 572. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/hypa.12064.

(f) Michelle Z. Donahue, "The Mad Dash to Figure Out the Fate of Peatlands," Smithsonian Magazine, 20 April 2016, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/mad-dash-figure-out-fate-peatlands-180958841/.

(g) Susan Schuppli, personal communication, 15 October 2020.

(h) Timothy Choy and Jerry Zee, "Condition—Suspension."

(i) Yaslin N. Gonzalez, Allan R. Bacon, and Willie G. Harris, "A billion tons of unaccounted for carbon in the southeastern United States," Geophysical Research Letters 45, (2018): 7580–7587. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1029/2018GL077540.

(j) University of Eastern Finland, "Ancient wetlands provide new insight into global carbon cycle," ScienceDaily, 26 February 2019, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190226091610.htm.

(k) Jennifer Gabrys, "Sink: The Dirt of Systems," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27, (2009): 675. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/d5708.

(l) Jennifer Gabrys, "Becoming Planetary."

(m) William Byrd, Joseph Meredith Toner Collection, and Miscellaneous Pamphlet Collection, The Westover Manuscripts: Containing The History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina; A Journey to the Land Of Eden, A.D.; and A Progress to the Mines, ed. Edmund Ruffin (Petersburg: E. and J. C. Ruffin, 1841), 30, https://lccn.loc.gov/rc01002772.

(n) William Byrd and E. G Swem, Description of the Dismal Swamp and A Proposal to Drain the Swamp (Metuchen, N.J.: C.F. Heartman, 1922), 17, https://www.loc.gov/item/22022884/.

(o) William Bartram, Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws; Containing An Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions, Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians (Philadelphia: James & Johnson, 1791), 25, https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/bartram/bartram.html.

(p) Megan Kate Nelson, Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 76. Google Books.

(q) Dilip da Cunha, The Invention of Rivers: Alexander’s Eye and Ganga’s Descent (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 6.

(r) John Ogilby and James Moxon, A New Discription of Carolina by the Order of the Lords Proprietors, University of North Carolina, North Carolina Maps, accessed 1 December 2020, https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ncmaps/id/498.

(s) "About the Refuge," U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 08 July 2020, https://www.fws.gov/refuge/great_dismal_swamp/about.html.

(t) Robert G. MacLean and Robert C. McLean, "A Yankee Tutor in the Old South," The North Carolina Historical Review 47, no. 1 (1970): 51-85, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23518297.

(u) David Hunter Strother (Porte Crayon), "The Dismal Swamp. Illustrated by Porte Crayon," Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 13, no. 56 (1856): 449.

(v) Samuel Lewis, Georgia, Georgia Archives, accessed 1 December 2020, https://vault.georgiaarchives.org/digital/collection/hmf/id/22/rec/24.

(w) Georgia Historical Society, "A Sketch of the Creek Country," in Collections of the Georgia Historical Society Vol. III (New York: William Van Norden Printer, 1873): 19-22.

(x) Richard Brookes, A New Universal Gazetteer (New York: W.W. Reed & Co., 1832), 562, Google Books.

(y) American Historical Review 26, no. 4 (1921): 739.

(z) Alexander Mackay, The Western World; Or, Travels in the United States in 1846 (London: Richard Bentley, 1849): 170. Google Books.

(aa) Monique Allewaert, "Swamp Sublime: Ecologies of Resistance in the American Plantation Zone," PMLA 123, no. 2 (2008): 345, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25501858.

(ab) Johann David Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation 1783-1784 (Philadelphia: W.J. Campbell, 1911), 99-101.

(ac) Megan Kate Nelson, Trembling Earth, 76.

(ad) Monique Allewaert, Ariel’s Ecology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 33.

(ae) Dilip da Cunha, The Invention of Rivers, 1.

(af) Kathryn Elise Benjamin Golden, "Through the Muck and Mire: Marronage, Representation, and Memory in the Great Dismal Swamp" (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2018), 29, https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/etd/ucb/text/Golden_berkeley_0028E_17847.pdf.

(ag) Marcus P. Nevius, City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763–1856 (Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 2020), 1.

(ah) Kathryn Elise Benjamin Golden, "Through the Muck and Mire," 48.

(ai) Robert Arnold, The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond. Early recollections. Vivid portrayal of amusing scenes., (Norfolk: Green, Burke & Gregory, Printers, 1888), 35, https://www.loc.gov/item/03020620/.

(aj) Saidiya Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 111.

(ak) Kathryn Elise Benjamin Golden, "Through the Muck and Mire," 49.

(al) Willie Jamaal Wright, "The Morphology of Marronage," 1144.

(am) Emily T. Yeh, Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 117.

(an) Monique Allewaert, Ariel’s Ecology, 4.

(ao) Brenna Bhandar, Colonial Lives of Property (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), 35.

(ap) Kathryn Elise Benjamin Golden, "Through the Muck and Mire," 270.

(aq) William Byrd and E. G Swem, Description of the Dismal Swamp and a proposal to drain the swamp, (Metuchen, N.J.: C.F. Heartman, 1922), 21, https://www.loc.gov/item/22022884/.

(ar) Marcus P. Nevius, City of Refuge, 26.

(as) Robert B. Atkinson, Timothy E. Morgan, Robert T. Belcher, and D.A. Brown, "The Role of Historical Inquiry in the Restoration of Atlantic White Cedar Swamps," in: Atlantic white cedar restoration ecology and management: Proceedings of a symposium, eds. Robert B. Atkinson, Robert T. Belcher, D.A. Brown, and James E. Perry (Newport News, VA: Christopher Newport University, 2003), 50.

(at) Sidney E. Morse (Sidney Edwards), A New System of Modern Geography, Or, A view of the Present State of the World (Boston: G. Clark, 1822), 166.

(au) Megan Kate Nelson, Trembling Earth, 71.

(av) Nicholas Blomley, "Law, Property, and the Geography of Violence: The Frontier, the Survey, and the Grid," Annals of the Association of American Geographers 93, no. 1 (2003): 127, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1515327.