TOP TEN 2009

SELC is using the power of the law to defend hundreds of imperiled areas, to ensure clean air and water, and to help chart a new energy future for our region. We have targeted ten special places that are facing immediate, potentially irreversible threats today. Ranging from the Southern Appalachians to the South Atlantic, this year’s Top Ten Most Endangered list illustrates the ecological, scenic, and cultural riches at stake—and the important actions needed in 2009 to protect our own environmental heritage and the legacy we will leave for future generations.

  • Weeks Bay, AL

    Weeks Bay, tucked along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, is an oasis of forested wetlands, marshes, and swamps—an area so unique it is one of only three in Alabama to receive the designation of Outstanding Natural Resource Water.

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Learn more about Alabama's endangered places »

  • Georgia’s Salt Marshes

    Georgia's coast is booming. By 2020, populations are expected to double and development pressure is threatening one of the South's iconic landscapes.

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  • Globe Forest, NC

    Despite public outcry, the U.S. Forest Service is planning to log over 210 acres of forestland near the community of Blowing Rock in western North Carolina. The plan threatens trees more than 300 years old, scenic views, and a popular recreation hotspot.

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  • Pamlico River, NC

    It will be the single largest destruction of wetlands in North Carolina’s history—should a phosphate mining company get permission to expand its operations on the banks of the Pamlico River.

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  • Great Pee Dee River, SC

    There’s plenty to admire along the banks of the Great Pee Dee River: hardwood forests, ancient cypress trees, rare stands of longleaf pine—and lately, hundreds of metal signs warning people not to eat the fish.

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  • Johns Island, SC

    Just southwest of downtown Charleston, Johns Island makes a fine Lowcountry portrait: quiet roads lined with live oak trees, horse pastures and small family farms, salt marshes dotted with wading birds. But a highway proposal threatens to bring large-scale development to this historic community, transforming the island into a sea of condos, mega-stores, and traffic.

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Learn more about South Carolina's endangered places »

  • Cherokee National Forest, northeast TN

    Because of pressure from pro-logging forces and a timber-oriented budget, the U.S. Forest Service is moving forward with plans to log several areas in northeast Tennessee.  Logging would be visible from the Appalachian Trail, degrade water quality in some of the state’s best trout streams, and fragment roadless areas.

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Learn more about Tennessee's endangered places »

  • Clinch & Powell Rivers, VA

    The problem with coal isn’t just how we burn it. Mountaintop removal and other harmful coal mining practices are on the rise, and are wreaking havoc on our region’s waters.

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  • I-81 Corridor, VA

    Despite enormous costs to the environment, communities, and taxpayers, state officials are reexamining a plan to double the width of Virginia’s longest highway. 
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  • Virginia’s Marine Waters

    The process has begun to open up Virginia’s marine waters to offshore drilling for oil and gas. But the benefit of such a short-term supply of energy is dramatically outweighed by potential harm to the environment and communities—and puts us on the wrong track in terms of curbing the impacts of global warming.

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Learn more about Virginia's endangered places »
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