Dear FAA Representatives,

Your agency has the authority and responsibility to stop Camden County from allowing a private company to launch its rockets over Cumberland Island National Seashore and the largest federally-protected Wilderness Area on the Eastern seaboard.

Events suggest that In 2015, without performing the required due diligence, Camden County (GA) commissioners decided to build a private commercial spaceport on land left contaminated by prior industrial waste. The spaceport was to be the catalyst for economic development.

At every step of this process, it appears the commissioners have diligently worked to pervert the necessary environmental studies and approval process in order to deliver this predetermined outcome.

You have provided insufficient challenge to – or oversight of – the commissioners or their agents\’ activities in developing the project\’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Launch Site Operator License (LSOL).

The Draft EIS has been challenged by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and others for serious deficiencies in methodology, legal sufficiency regarding the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

The proposed launch site is landlocked 10 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean and 4 miles due west of Cumberland Island National Seashore and Wilderness Area. Every possible trajectory from Spaceport Camden would immediately overfly and threaten Cumberland and Little Cumberland Islands, including the homes of private citizens.

Cumberland Island Wilderness, part of the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS), is stringently protected by the Wilderness Act and NEPA to remain self-willed land, exempt from exactly this kind of trammeling.

By ignoring the gross inadequacies of the EIS and accelerating a Final EIS and Record of Decision (ROD) for Spaceport Camden under the guise of Executive Order 13927, your agency is failing in its responsibility to the public.

The FAA-sanctioned DEIS ignored or perverted requirements, thereby failing legal sufficiency.

An FAA desire to promote commercial space by increasing launch capacity does not justify approving Spaceport Camden. National need can be met without endangering Cumberland Island\’s irreplaceable natural resources.

The DEIS allowed a 6% rocket failure rate. Astra, the commercial launch company\’s rocket referenced in the revised LSOL application, currently has a 100% failure rate. Even a 6% rate is unacceptable for wilderness and a national seashore under the NEPA mandate to maintain them, in perpetuity, untrammeled by man.

FAA Maximum Probable Loss (MPL) calculations value Cumberland\’s Wilderness at zero. That\’s illogical, capricious and arbitrary.

Moving forward with Spaceport Camden declares to Americans that you are willing to endanger our citizens’ most highly-protected lands, our Wilderness, to promote the interests of private, for-profit companies to the detriment of future generations.

Thanks for listening and doing your part to preserve the Cumberland Island ecosystem.

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