Turtles, Fire and Contamination: Opposition From Spaceport Camden’s Neighbors

Russ Regnery is a Little Cumberland landowner who runs the island’s loggerhead sea turtle monitoring program. He’s worried about the impacts the spaceport could have on the species, and the island itself. (Emma Hurt/WABE)

This piece is a part of WABE’s deep dive into Camden County’s proposed spaceport project: how it came to be, who could be affected and where it could go from here. Read part one of this special report here.

The spaceport site sits just inland from Little Cumberland Island. Many of the 83 families who own land and homes on the protected barrier island aren’t happy about the idea of rockets launching over them.   

One of their arguments involves the island’s loggerhead sea turtle monitoring program, the oldest continuous one in the world.