In February 2026 CEDS was retained by Eatonton, Georgia residents to safeguard Lake Sinclair and area residents from the impact of a massive stone quarry proposal. After four months of aggressive organizing and research, in May the applicant withdrew their request for the zoning change needed to begin quarrying. However, they then submitted another rezoning request but for a quarry half the size. In October, the Putnam County Commissioners denied the zoning change.

As is usually the case, this victory is due as much, if not more, to what our clients did to demonstrate widespread among area residents as to the assistance provided by CEDS and their attorney.

CEDS drafted the 18-page comments letter posted at the following link: https://app.box.com/s/uywl5k8ee6wu0yfczk2kos41q88wk7kr. The CEDS letter addressed the following issues:

• County law prohibits quarries within 1,000 feet of a home, church, or other sensitive feature, yet there were 13 homes and a church within the thousand-foot safety buffer,
• Quarry soil erosion and sediment pollution would exacerbate the already rapid siltation of Lake Sinclair, and
• The increased mud pollution would conflict with the Georgia Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) calling for reduced sediment input, not a massive increase.

The attorney representing our clients submitted an excellent legal analysis of why the rezoning request should be denied: https://app.box.com/s/1b1bzquu3fl6ssp7r5ay1ii5biper442

CEDS also assisted area residents by creating the online petition posted at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/putnam. By October 2026 more than 2,000 Putnam County and other Georgia residents had signed the petition.

Unlike the free petitions available on sites like Change.org, those created by CEDS are up to ten times more effective in convincing elected officials and other decision-makers that numerous local residents, especially voters, are deeply concerned about an issue and crucially their concerns are based on science; not merely a knee-jerk/NIMBY reaction. The petition results package created by CEDS at the following link demonstrated that most signers live near the quarry site and the compilation of their reasons for signing were well-reasoned: https://app.box.com/s/da136e3788un0skyag90j1hb8jcrd0w3.