critical essays on twin peaks the return

Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return

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“ Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return sets the bar for critical engagement with 2017’s revival of the seminal cult TV series. Sanna brings together eighteen new analyses that explore David Lynch and Mark Frost’s reboot of Twin Peaks from a multitude of perspectives, from a Lacanian reading of its use of doubles through a study of how the owls are not what they meme, looking at Twin Peaks -inspired internet memes. Scholars and fans alike will find much that is illuminating and much to debate in this welcome volume.”— Dominick Grace , Professor of English, Brescia University College, Canada This edited collection offers an interdisciplinary study of Twin Peaks: The Return , the third season of a TV program that has attracted the attention (and appreciation) of spectators, fans, and critics for over two decades. The book takes readers into several distinct areas and addresses the different approaches and the range of topics invited by the multidimensionality of the subject itself: the philosophical, the artistic, the socio-cultural, and the personal. The eighteen chapters constituting the volume are academic in their approach to the subject and in their methodology, whether they apply a historical, psychoanalytical, film studies, or gender studies perspective to the text under examination. The variety and range of perspectives in these aforementioned chapters reflect the belief that a study of the full complexity of Twin Peaks: The Return, as well as a timely assessment of the critical importance of the program, requires both an interdisciplinary perspective and the fusion of different intellectual approaches across genres. The chapters demonstrate a collective awareness of the TV series as a fundamental milestone in contemporary culture. Antonio Sanna completed his PhD at the University of Westminster, UK. He has published over sixty essays and reviews in international journals and in a variety of edited collections. He is co-editor (with Adam Barkman) of A Critical Companion to Tim Burton (2017) and A Critical Companion to James Cameron (2018), and editor of Pirates in History and Popular Culture (2018).

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Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return

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This edited collection offers an interdisciplinary study of Twin Peaks: The Return, the third season of a TV program that has attracted the attention (and appreciation) of spectators, fans, and critics for over two decades. The book takes readers into several distinct areas and addresses the different approaches and the range of topics invited by the multidimensionality of the subject itself: the philosophical, the artistic, the socio-cultural, and the personal. The eighteen chapters constituting the volume are academic in their approach to the subject and in their methodology, whether they apply a historical, psychoanalytical, film studies, or gender studies perspective to the text under examination.

The variety and range of perspectives in these aforementioned chapters reflect the belief that a study of the full complexity of Twin Peaks: The Return, as well as a timely assessment of the critical importance of the program, requires both an interdisciplinary perspective and the fusion of different intellectual approaches across genres. The chapters demonstrate a collective awareness of the TV series as a fundamental milestone in contemporary culture.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter, the real world: history, technology and fandom, chapter 1. entering the world of twin peaks, chapter 2. is it happening again twin peaks and ‘the return’ of history, chapter 3. extraterrestrial intelligences in the atomic age: exploring the rhetorical function of aliens and the ‘alien’ in the twin peaks universe, chapter 4. lucy finally understands how cellphones work: ambiguous digital technologies in twin peaks: the return and its fan communities, chapter 5. ‘the owls are not what they meme’: making sense of twin peaks with internet memes, chapter 6. ‘is it about the bunny no, it’s not about the bunny’: david lynch’s fandom and trolling of peak tv audiences, in the lodges: subjectivity and (un)realism, chapter 7. ‘between two mysteries’: intermediacy in twin peaks: the return, chapter 8. ‘my log has a message for you,’ or, vibrant matter and twin peaks: on thing-power and subjectivity, chapter 9. ‘here’s to the pie that saved your life, dougie’: the weird realism of twin peaks, chapter 10. movement in the box: the production of surreal social space and the alienated body, chapter 11. how mark frost’s twin peaks books clarify and confound the nature of reality, chapter 12. copy of a copy of a copy: theorizing the triplicity of self and otherness in season three of twin peaks, into the psyche: trauma, dreams and music, chapter 13. from lost highway to twin peaks: representations of trauma and transformation in lynch’s late works, chapter 14. kafka’s crime film: twin peaks—the return and the brotherhood of lynch and kafka, chapter 15. who is the dreamer, chapter 16. is it the wind in the tall trees or just the distant buzz of electricity: sound and music as portent in twin peaks’ season three, chapter 17. ‘listen to the sounds’: sound and storytelling in twin peaks: the return, chapter 18. ‘i’ll point you to a better time/a safer place to be’: music, nostalgia and estrangement in twin peaks: the return.

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This edited collection offers an interdisciplinary study of Twin Peaks: The Return , the third season of a TV program that has attracted the attention (and appreciation) of spectators, fans, and critics for over two decades. The book takes readers into several distinct areas and addresses the different approaches and the range of topics invited by the multidimensionality of the subject itself: the philosophical, the artistic, the socio-cultural, and the personal. The eighteen chapters constituting the volume are academic in their approach to the subject and in their methodology, whether they apply a historical, psychoanalytical, film studies, or gender studies perspective to the text under examination.

The variety and range of perspectives in these aforementioned chapters reflect the belief that a study of the full complexity of Twin Peaks: The Return , as well as a timely assessment of the critical importance of the program, requires both an interdisciplinary perspective and the fusion of different intellectual approaches across genres. The chapters demonstrate a collective awareness of the TV series as a fundamental milestone in contemporary culture.

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Is It Happening Again? Twin Peaks and 'The Return' of History

2019, Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return

Psychoanalysis is bound to creep into the discussion of the revival of Twin Peaks. Despite some recent attempts to keep it out of the discussion of Lynch's work (Nochimson 2013), the program's content is simply too suggestive, even for those with only a passing familiarity with psychoanalytic concepts. Most striking in this respect is the general move made in the new series away from the Freudian oedipal grid structured around the crimes of the obscene father to the pre-Oedipal, distinctly Kleinian world of the mother. One need only brie y cite a few instances of Twin Peaks: The Return's (2017) (hereafter The Return) obsession with motherhood to see the force of such a reading: the overshadowing of BOB (Frank Silva) with 'Jowday' as the supernatural source of evil, the possession of Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) that seems to be result of her swallowing an evil insect-in Kleinian terms, the 'bad object' put into the mother in phantasy that results in her "splitting" into two gures: the 'good,' loving mother, and the 'bad,' persecuting mother (Segal 1974; Klein 1959)-the central role of Janey-E (Naomi Watts); the relationship between Shelly Briggs (Mädchen Amick) and

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To return is to come or to go back, to turn around, to give back, or restore. A return is an act of coming back, or a thing sent back. There is an implication of repetition. But can something really come back? Is it possible to restore a previous state? Do all things remain unchanged? Do superficially similar situations not contain underlying differences? Stepping into this etymological and philosophical whirlpool, the recent television event Twin Peaks: The Return demonstrates the difficulty of return, the illusion of progress, and the tensions between surface appearance and inner life.

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In 1992, the year David Lynch’s cult television series Twin Peaks was pulled off air, Lynch released the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a prequel to the television series which filled in some of the gaps left from the series finale cliff-hanger. The film was received with unanimously negative reviews from critics and fans alike, condemning both its subtle and obvious deviations from the series and its inclusion of the character Laura Palmer, whose absence was a crucial narrative device at the centre of Twin Peaks. In film form, the Twin Peaks narrative suffers from thematic inconsistencies and aesthetic deviations. The scope of Twin Peaks seems much more capable in the setting of television and its gradual, episodic set-up. In recent years, however, with the announcement of a revival of the series, retrospective analysis of Fire Walk with Me has become more positive, and the film has also become an integral part of the overall Twin Peaks canon. Nevertheless, the transition from television to film in the case of Twin Peaks has remained a point of fan and scholarly controversy, with issues of continuity, narrative and aesthetics between the two different mediums continually being addressed and compared. In light of the news that the new season of Twin Peaks is set to be released in 2017, this article examines the significance of Fire Walk with Me as a cinematic counterpart and prequel to the original series, and how this has helped shape – whether positively or not – the overall narrative of Twin Peaks.

Joshua Jones

In this paper I explore questions of epistemology and complicity in Twin Peaks: The Return with reference to the original series and to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. I characterize these works as auto-exegetical texts (texts that critically read themselves), and I introduce the notion of epistemic ambivalence to describe how they proffer the possibility of teleological resolution while deliberately failing to provide enough information to realize that possibility. I examine how epistemic ambivalence is frequently deployed around questions of complicity with and culpability for evil, with the effect that the desire for certain knowledge and meaning is problematized by its connection to a masculinized desire for mastery. I argue that epistemic ambivalence is not just an important theme but is an integral characteristic of The Return’s ambivalently complicit story of violence and objectification. I reach two main conclusions: first, that the foregrounding of Laura’s pain in both Fire Walk with Me and The Return demands that audiences address and reflect upon their own complicity with the violence inflicted upon her; and second, that while there may be value in remaining attached to the desire for certain knowledge and to the dualistic conceptions of good and evil deployed ambiguously throughout Twin Peaks, there is more ethical and critical value to be found in exploring how these works engage the ambivalence such attachment engenders.

The Politics of Twin Peaks

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Allister Mactaggart

For fans, returning to Twin Peaks for a third season was always going to be wrought with intense speculation, anticipation, and, perhaps, a hint of trepidation. After all, a great deal has happened in the intervening quarter of a century, not least in the ways in which television is produced, distributed, and consumed. Would Twin Peaks be able to maintain its quirky and mysterious allure in the twenty-first century? Would David Lynch and Mark Frost be able to pull it off again? These questions were answered in a remarkable season which refused to provide a simple, nostalgic return to the town of Twin Peaks. Indeed, the season greatly expanded the geographical range and focus of inquiry, and aesthetic experimentation, to suggest that BOB’s evil has extended its criminal reach into a much wider orbit in the intervening period. Would FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper be able to offer us hope?

Patricia Omeara

how does the portrayal of sadness highlight the portrayal of gender in the first epsidoe of Twin Peaks.

Elephant & Castle, n. 23

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Far from simply being a “return” to the set and story of Twin Peaks, the third installment of the series opens up an articulate and subtle work on the images, on their visual consistency, time-space position, and autonomy. In so doing, Twin Peaks: The Return addresses the issue of memory, and the distance from the previous seasons in terms of (sometimes uncanny) recognition and identification of images themselves, to the extent that there is a clash between the separate levels of story and discourse. David Lynch is clearly not interested in simply adding a third part in order to revisit the past (and the myth) and the stories and characters from previous seasons; in short, he does not seek to serialize the series by simply breathing life, for a third time, into the world of Twin Peaks. Instead, Twin Peaks: The Return is a complex, subtle visual operation, in which the famous promise made by Laura Palmer to Agent Cooper in the final episode of the second season ("I’ll see you again in 25 years") reveals itself, episode after episode, to be an unpredictable return on the imagery of the series, and on a time (that of images) that exceeds the standard, commonsense idea of time.

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Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return pp 23–36 Cite as

Is It Happening Again? Twin Peaks and ‘ The Return ’ of History

• Matthew Ellis 2 &
• Tyler Theus 2  
• First Online: 05 January 2019

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Ellis and Theus argue that The Return narrates the impossibility of representing history as something one returns to , as well as something which itself returns , affirming that the show’s third season poses a distinct challenge to existing models of conceiving of history as a series of representable events or as a space which can be eventually (re)occupied. In this sense, The Return becomes an epistemic problem staged over the course of more than two decades of American history rising in the years between Seasons Two and Three, both diegetic and off-screen. By treating the impossibility of history through this concept of the ‘return,’ the chapter brings together the insights of psychoanalytically oriented literature on Twin Peaks with the literature focused on televisual narrative and postmodernity.

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Blake, Linnie. 2016. ‘Trapped in the Hysterical Sublime: Twin Peaks , Postmodernism, and the Neoliberal Now.’ In Return to Twin Peaks: New Approaches to Materiality, Theory, and Genre on Television , edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock and Catherine Spooner, 229–245. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Ellis, M., Theus, T. (2019). Is It Happening Again? Twin Peaks and ‘ The Return ’ of History. In: Sanna, A. (eds) Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04798-6_2

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Twin Peaks Fans' Biggest Season 2 Criticism Is Invalid

• Frequent interferences from ABC led to creators David Lynch and Mark Frost leaving Twin Peaks for the majority of Season 2, leading to an inconsistent set of episodes.
• The biggest Season 2 criticism is that it's completely skippable, but the highest point of Twin Peaks takes place throughout Season 2.
• David Lynch returned to direct Season 2's final episode of Twin Peaks , which managed to tie all loose ends in a shocking twist. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to prevent the show from being canceled.

Season 2 of Twin Peaks is generally despised by fans, and while the arguments might be well-founded, they aren't necessarily fair. Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch, Twin Peaks is widely regarded as a surrealist masterpiece. It's centered around the shocking murder of Homecoming Queen Laura Palmer, an event that shakes the lives of every inhabitant of the seemingly peaceful town of Twin Peaks and brings to light dark secrets that should've been kept dormant.

There's no shortage of praise for the first season and the 2017 revival, but Season 2 has always been a divisive point of the series among fans. From studio interference prompting Lynch and Frost to temporarily exit the show to absurd storylines drastically affecting the pacing of the story, there was a lot going against Twin Peaks , leading up to an abrupt cancelation. However, there are many positive arguments to make about Season 2.

Twin Peaks Creators' Initial Plan Was Interrupted By Studio Interference

• Back when Twin Peaks was airing on ABC, Disney's Bob Iger was the president of ABC and insisted that Laura's killer was prematurely revealed. Years later, Iger confessed in his book that he should've listened to Lynch.

15 Most Successful Netflix Shows Of All Time

It was never Lynch nor Frost's intention to answer the question of who killed Laura Palmer . It was something that could've eventually come to light, but essentially, didn't matter the slightest to the show's creators. The whole concept of Twin Peaks was having a wide range of characters going down unnerving rabbit holes in search of the truth about Laura's killer. When the series takes that from them, there's no clear direction for them to go. Even Agent Cooper's stay wouldn't make sense if it weren't for a love interest keeping him in town — another storyline that Lynch and Frost had nothing to do with.

The pressure of finding out who was the killer was important to get the show going, but it never mattered to the audience. It propelled characters such as Audrey, Cooper, Shelly, and others to look into the darkest secret of Twin Peaks while simultaneously forcing the bad guys to come out of their hiding places for fear of getting tangled up in this conspiracy. It kept the mystery in motion while unburying new ones. This dynamic fell to pieces when ABC decided that Laura's killer needed to be revealed anytime soon. Lynch and Frost were strongly against this idea, but they ultimately had to give in to the studio's interference, sealing their absence from the rest of Season 2.

In an interview for Vanity Fair, Lynch claimed, "The pilot is the only thing I am particularly, extremely proud of. There were great moments along the way." The statement strongly implies that Lynch and Frost's ideas were cut off from the get-go, and very little of what they had in mind made it to Season 2. From Season 2's Episode 1 to Episode 9, Twin Peaks reached an unparalleled climax that ended with Laura's killer being unveiled and the ratings reaching welcoming heights. However, it took only a few episodes ahead of the big revelation for Twin Peaks ' rating to plummet out of control, and not even a noteworthy finale directed by Lynch was enough to save the show from getting canceled.

Did the Reveal Laura Palmer's Killer Really Kill the Show?

• Season 2 revealed that Laura's father, Leland Palmer, was the one who killed her while possessed by the evil spirit Bob.

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In Season 2, Episode 7, "Lonely Souls," it's revealed to the public that Leland Palmer was responsible for his daughter's death while possessed by the evil spirit Bob. Two episodes later, it's time for Agent Cooper and the inhabitants of Twin Peaks to discover the shocking truth. Just like that, the show's biggest mystery is solved, consequently leading Twin Peaks to a dead-end alley. From then on, it becomes clear that Laura's killer, though an invisible force up until that point, was the show's MacGuffin.

However, Twin Peaks turning into something different from what it was doesn't necessarily mean it turned into something bad. While the entirety of Season 2 is often the target of backlash, what tends to be the problem among viewers is the nonsensical chunk between the reveal of Laura's killer and Annie Blackburn's arrival, that is, the gap between episodes 9 and 18. With Laura's mystery out of the picture, the show embraced its soap opera appeal openly. With no central conflict driving the characters into a climax, it was up to the characters to drive the narrative somewhere.

The midpoint of Season 2 includes storylines such as Dick Tremayne suspecting Little Nicky is part of a Satanic cult and Ben Horne embodying Robert E. Lee in a delusional attempt to change the course of the American Civil War. Regardless of how despised this moment of Twin Peaks is among fans, there's no denying that the cast believed so much in their roles that the show created a life of its own. There's a great balance between the show's quirkiness and its creepiest themes in Season 2, which pays off in the bleak change of tone that takes place in the final five episodes.

Twin Peaks Season 2 Still Delivered the Highest Point of the Series

• The movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me , directed by David Lynch, recounts the final days of Laura Palmer and is regarded as one of the most disturbing in Lynch's career.

10 TV Shows That Exceeded People's Expectations

The biggest Season 2 criticism is that it's completely skippable, except for the three episodes — Episodes 7,8 and 9 — that wrap Twin Peaks ' central mystery. While it's true that not everyone will fall head over heels for the soap opera turn that takes over the middle point of the season, skipping the entirety of Season 2 is the same as skipping most of the highest points in the series. For one thing, the season premiere remains one of the weirdest Twin Peaks episodes : it's the only Season 2 episode written and directed by Lynch, and it playfully subverts the audience's expectations following the shocking attempt on Agent Cooper's life.

The season premiere also happens to introduce symbolism that will remain relevant to Twin Peaks throughout the rest of Season 2 and even Twin Peaks: The Return , from the Giant's appearance to the three riddles he offers Agent Cooper. The whole One Eyed Jack's rescue plotline lives up to Season 1's most intense moments and stands as the perfect distraction to the tragedy that falls upon Twin Peaks in Episode 7, "Lonely Souls." In this spectacular episode directed by Lynch, a possessed Leland strikes again, murdering Laura's cousin Maddy. Episode 9, "Arbitrary Law", wraps what is the best run of the episodes of Twin Peaks , where all the conflicting storylines of multiple characters collide, shining a light on whom the real enemy is.

A common misconception is that Season 2 never picks up the pace ahead of the revelation of Laura's killer. While it's true that the following episodes can feel all over the place, the introduction of Agent Cooper's love interest, Annie Blackburn, sets the series in motion once again. The final five episodes of the season offer a deep dive into the lore of the Black Lodge and the White Lodge, exploring supernatural elements that only popped up occasionally in Season 1. Insightful supernatural themes join the big picture, and the confrontation between good and evil gets as straightforward as it can at the climax of Season 2. To everyone's surprise, evil wins again.

The final episode, "Beyond Life and Death," wraps the season, and consequently the show, on an unforgettable high note, with none other than David Lynch stepping back on set to direct it. The entire episode is a deep dive into the depths of the Black Lodge. Lynch's signature in the episode's bizarre imagery grants the closest thing of a horror experience, and the cliffhanger of a lifetime draws Twin Peaks to a close , only to return 26 years later: Agent Cooper, the good incarnate, loses his lover and is possessed by Bob in the process. Season 2 of Twin Peaks is, essentially, the opposite of what Lynch and Frost wanted it to be. However, most of what the show is best known for can be found in this inconsistent yet compelling 22-episode run. Season 2 enables the mysteries of Twin Peaks' surrounding woods to come to light while exploring the manifestations of evil that shook Season 1. It's sad that Laura is forced out of the picture when her killer is revealed, but screenwriter Harley Peyton was familiar enough with the show to guide the story towards an epic conclusion. It's easy to dismiss how many setbacks prevented Season 2 from standing on its feet, yet it still thrived in moments of climax and lore.

Theories point at ABC forcing Lynch and Frost to reveal the killer because they already knew the show was going to be canceled, and they wanted at least the central mystery to have a compelling conclusion. It's both ironic and satisfying that the writers decided to end Season 2 with a major cliffhanger as an effective counter-attack. One mystery was solved, so another could replace it: 26 years later, Twin Peaks was back with all the creative freedom Lynch and Frost needed.

An idiosyncratic FBI agent investigates the murder of a young woman in the even more idiosyncratic town of Twin Peaks.

Release Date April 8, 1990

Cast Mdchen Amick, Kyle MacLachlan, Dana Ashbrook

Main Genre Crime

Rating TV-MA

Seasons 3 Seasons

Creator Mark Frost, David Lynch

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A Dire Threat to a National Wildlife Treasure

By Margaret Renkl

Ms. Renkl is a contributing Opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South.

One of the hardest things to reconcile about living in the American South is how this region of extraordinary natural beauty, this still wild place of irreplaceable biodiversity, is mostly in the hands of politicians who will gladly sell it to the highest bidder. It’s hard to reconcile how even land that’s ostensibly protected is never truly safe . And how state regulators charged with protecting it will often look the other way when the highest bidder violates the state’s own environmental regulations .

An egregious example of this pattern is unfolding in Georgia, where state officials are poised to approve a strip mine on the southeastern edge of the magnificent Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge .

At 407,000 acres, the Okefenokee is the largest ecologically intact blackwater swamp in North America and the largest National Wildlife Refuge east of the Mississippi River. It hosts or shelters a huge range of plant and animal life , including endangered and threatened species. It is a crucial way station for migratory birds. Designated a wetland of international importance under the RAMSAR Convention of 1971, it sequesters an immense amount of carbon in the form of peat .

The proposed mine poses a profound risk to the swamp. Trail Ridge, the site where Twin Pines Minerals will begin operations, is a geological formation that functions as a low earthen dam holding the waters of the Okefenokee in place. The mine would remove the topsoil, dig out the sand pits, separate the titanium from the sand and then return sand and soil to some approximation of their original place. To manage all this, Twin Pines would need to pump 1.4 million gallons of groundwater a day from the aquifer that serves the Okefenokee.

It doesn’t sound too bad, I guess, unless you know that this destroy-extract-replace plan is effectively mountaintop-removal mining transferred to the watery lowlands. There is no restoring an ecosystem after an assault like that. Aquatic plants and animals die off if waterways become clogged with silt. Drinking water can be contaminated by heavy metals. Ancient land formations and the habitats they underpin are lost forever. The living soil is left barren.

As a species, we have never let ecological necessity get in the way of something we think we need from the land. Thing is, we don’t need this mine. Titanium dioxide is used primarily as pigment in a range of products, including paint and toothpaste. It is not difficult to find in less environmentally sensitive areas.

Twin Pines, an Alabama company, claims that its proposed mine would bring hundreds of much-needed jobs to an economically depressed part of the state. It does not say how much income would be lost if the mine depresses tourism to this ethereal place, which each year attracts more than 800,000 visitors who spend some $91.5 million while they’re there. Okefenokee tourism “supports 750 jobs, $79 million in economic output and $11.1 million in annual tax revenue in the area,” notes an analysis by The Conservation Fund .

Even by a purely human measure, in other words, there is no compelling reason for Georgia to allow mining on a fragile ridge of land less than three miles from the Okefenokee Swamp.

By environmental measures, of course, setting up a strip mine anywhere near this wildlife sanctuary should be flat-out illegal. Arguably, it already is. Hydrologists at the National Park Service last year found “ critical shortcomings ” in the model Twin Pines used to demonstrate the safety of its plan — a model that “obfuscates the true impacts from mining on the refuge.”

It’s important to note that this is not a battle between the people of Georgia and some out-of-state environmental organizations that don’t understand the dynamics of rural poverty. The people of Georgia treasure the Okefenokee. When I wrote about this risk to the swamp last year, the first period of public comment was coming to a close, and sentiment was already clear: 69 percent of Georgians supported permanently protecting the swamp from development, and Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division received more than 200,000 public responses opposing the mine .

What the people of Georgia know — which Georgia environmental regulators refuse to acknowledge — is that we should react as fiercely to the idea of a mine on the edge of the Okefenokee as we would to “any action that jeopardizes the integrity of something like Yellowstone or Yosemite or the Grand Canyon,” Bill Sapp, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, told Brady Dennis of The Washington Post . Instead of handing it over to some out-of-state company to profit from, Georgia officials ought to be protecting this swamp with every tool they have at hand.

Nevertheless, on Feb. 9, just days after I wrote an essay about the danger to American wetlands in general and to the Okefenokee in particular, Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division — don’t even get me started on the irony — issued draft permits for the mine.

Here’s another irony for you, courtesy of reporting by The Associated Press’s Russ Bynum : “The draft permits were released barely two weeks after Twin Pines agreed to pay a $20,000 fine ordered by Georgia regulators, who said the company violated state laws while collecting soil samples for its permit application.” To put this sequence of events another way, Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division gave the company a slap on the wrist and then threw it a parade.

How is it even possible that state regulators are on the cusp of approving an unnecessary mine on the boundary of a desperately needed federal wildlife sanctuary? A mine that the state’s own citizens, along with a bipartisan majority of its lawmakers, so vehemently oppose? In a comprehensive report for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , Drew Kann lays out the role that lobbying efforts and campaign donations — and a devastating rollback of environmental protections during Donald Trump’s presidency — have played in leaving the Okefenokee so vulnerable.

When Georgia regulators issued the draft permits for the mine, they also allowed 60 days for the public to comment. After April 9, the final permits could be issued, and Twin Pines could begin operations. In the meantime, efforts to defeat the mine have shifted into an even higher gear .

The National Park Service has nominated the Okefenokee refuge as a UNESCO World Heritage site , a distinction that, if granted, would bring additional visitors to the area — and additional scrutiny to Georgia’s management of the swamp.

Officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have informed Georgia regulators that the agency is formally asserting federal rights over waters that affect the Okefenokee. “Disruption to the natural flow of groundwater in this interconnected system could have far-reaching consequences for both the refuge and surrounding areas,” wrote Mike Oetker, the acting Southeast regional director of the agency.

A new bill before the Georgia House of Representatives — which the Georgia Conservancy supports — would call a moratorium on new permit applications for mineral mines using the method that Twin Pines plans to use at Trail Ridge. If passed by the House and Senate and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia before the end of the legislative session on March 28, the new bill would effectively turn the first phase of the Twin Pines mine into a pilot site, preventing the company from expanding mining operations until scientists have had time to gather data and assess the mine’s impact on the swamp. The House is set to vote on Tuesday.

In a virtual public meeting attended by hundreds of people this month, commenters spoke for three hours in defense of the swamp. (No one spoke in favor of the mine.) “There’s just no sense in risking the national wildlife refuge just to make rich people richer by mining for an extremely nonessential mineral,” one local resident said.

There’s no sense in it at all. To build a mine on the edge of the Okefenokee would be to rob nearby Georgians of safe drinking water, to rob our wild neighbors of one of the few truly wild places we have left and to rob the world of an ecological treasure. The Okefenokee does not belong to Georgia. It belongs to the planet. It belongs to us. And we should all do everything in our power to save it.

To comment on the proposed mine by April 9, email [email protected] or send a letter to the Land Protection Branch, 4244 International Parkway, Atlanta Tradeport Suite 104, Atlanta, GA 30354. It is not necessary to live in Georgia to comment.

Margaret Renkl , a contributing Opinion writer, is the author of the books “ The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, ” “ Graceland, at Last ” and “ Late Migrations .”

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