The government is taking Jeff Melin’s Georgia farm. His crime? Preserving 450 acres and pouring blood, sweat, and tears into the property.
“We already gave the government land for eminent domain,” he says. “Now they’re back wanting more. Now they want it all.”
Even in the nightmare realm of eminent domain power grabs, Melin’s case is particularly shocking. His farmland is being obliterated, with roughly 225 acres ripped from the middle of his operation to house an airport: Cows replaced by corporate jets. Barns replaced by hangars.
“And it’s not even for commercial passengers,” he says. “It’s an airport for billionaires to park their jets and big businesses to have hangars.”
“My grandfather, dad, and myself protected this land,” Melin continues. “We survived depressions and disasters, and kept this place together for decades. My dad turned down millions of dollars, over and over, from subdivisions.”
Melin describes a sickening contradiction of farmland preservation. “We sacrificed to keep this wonderful place whole, and now that’s why they want it. How could it be more ironic? If we’d have built on it or trashed it, they’d leave it alone. The better and longer you take care of your land, the more at risk you are to losing it.”
Insult to deepest injury, Melin is getting a per acre pittance for his land, he says. “They force me to sell against my will and then pay a fraction of the value. And I’m not allowed to turn them down. My story will make you question what kind of country you’re living in.”
Heaven No More
Sixty miles south of Atlanta, in Spalding County, Melin stares across gentle hills veined with creeks, rubbing against a mix of pastures and woods: cattle, water, deer plots, dove field, pecan grove, and much more. Despite the beauty, it also contains a withering family legacy.
Awaiting grinding at the edge of the 70-acre pecan grove, a chain of toppled trees stretches like fallen dominoes, with many of the specimens over a century in age. Concrete poles are already in place as pecans give way to power lines. Soon, grass will give way to a 6,000’ asphalt runway, as part of a 730-acre new airport for Spalding County.
“I’ve got 90 days to get my stuff out of a 40’-by-60’ shop so they can get started,” Melin describes. “It’s an order to vacate. That means 90 days to move 75 years worth of farm equipment. I don’t even know where I’ll put all the tools, welders, compressors, and all the rest. I don’t have another shop built. I’ve got to get rid of at least 65 cows and 30 calves right off the bat.”
“They’ve killed my farm,” he adds. “This will be the end of me. And when I say, ‘they,’ I mean the county, state, and federal government. All three are involved with this airport.”
“All together, they’re taking about 225 acres from the middle of my operation. They’re leaving me land in the back that’s landlocked, that I can’t get to, and then leaving me land on the front of one side that’s going to be landlocked. I never dreamed this is how it’d end. For sure, my grandfather and dad (John Bennett Melin) never dreamed it, either. This was heaven to us.”
In 1951, the Melin clan pulled stakes in Red Wing, Minnesota and moved over 1,200 miles to Griffin, Georgia, hauling cattle the whole way, to start Melin Brothers Poled Herefords.
“I love everything this farm represents—heart and soul,” Melin says. “I love it so much that I took a job close to home as a mechanic at Delta Airlines so that I could work the land and help my dad. We grew up with sacrifice. Didn’t matter if it was family vacation or Thanksgiving—somebody had to be here to feed. People in farming know exactly what I’m saying. Our farm was not for sale at any price because our lives were molded around this land.”
“At 57 and approaching retirement age, to have your land and life snatched away feels like a terrible dream, but I know it’s real. It all started with a newspaper article: They didn’t even have the decency to knock on my door.”
Blood and Tears
In 2012, Melin opened a morning newspaper to find himself in the bull’s-eye of eminent domain’s “common good.” The existing Spalding County airport’s runway was deemed too short, and Melin’s farm was listed among four to five potential sites to build a new airport on 730 acres, including 124 hangars for express and corporate jets.
According to the Georgia Department of Transportation, a new airport would generate $24 million in economic impact per year for Spalding County.
Melin was stunned. His ground is hilly. “I thought it was impossible. A mistake. Why build an airport in hills? I couldn’t imagine the amount of dirt moving and earthworks and boxing creeks it’d take to build an airport on my land. I mean, it even requires moving power lines and a gas line.”
No matter. Melin’s land is open and near town. Case closed, in the county’s eyes.
“We’re an old mill town. There’s plenty of other spots that are flatter, but they don’t want to deal with the legalities and paperwork. Better to take prime agriculture ground preserved across my dad’s lifetime at a cost of blood and tears. There’s a lot of other dilapidated land around here, but it’s not open and would require diligence and hassle. Better to steal mine. There was no public vote or opportunity to say no. Nothing.”
Melin’s 450-acre farm is split into four parcels. The county is taking a 225-acre strip from the middle. Irony upon irony, Melin already had willfully ceded ground to eminent domain. “Many times in the past, for genuine public good, we got out of the way when roads were widened, because we cared about people’s safety. This is not that. This is greed and power.”
An Honest Dollar
Letters and studies. Environmental. Archeological. Ecological.
“They dragged it out, year after year, and never let you know what was really going on,” Melin contends. “They never listened. They never communicated with us face to face. They didn’t come to my house. They didn’t seek me out. They didn’t come find me and say anything. They sent a few letters and made their announcements.”
“It was shoddy. No matter what I said, they’d respond, ‘We just have to keep on doing studies.’ This was a foregone conclusion, but they pretended otherwise. They didn’t even know there were five gas lines under me and were going to put hangars on top of them.”
Money doesn’t replace lifeblood, but Melin assumed he’d receive a “fair price” for his land.
Melin had fair reasoning behind his assumption: According to the county, there was nowhere else to build an airport presented as indispensable and necessary. Arguably, Melin was sitting atop the most vital land in Spalding County.
“Nope. They wouldn’t give me an honest dollar.”
Like It or Else
Every year, Melin poured in money to improve his land and soils. Fertilizer, lime, weed control, and myriad other management costs—even foot patrol with a backpack sprayer to kill thistle. “None of that goes into their valuations. All I can do about value is look around and make reasonable judgements based on how much got paid recently for land recently around me. There was an old cattle farm right down the road that we did business with for years. It was 100 acres, fenced and cross-fenced, and sold for $75,000 an acre to Georgia Power for a substation. The owner got $7.5M.”
“About 2 miles from me, the county bought a 29-acre school site and paid $14,000 per acre about 22 years ago: $420,000,” he adds.
However, according to Melin, Spalding County offered a fraction of what the school property brought per acre. “I’m getting lowballed with a percentage of what the other properties sold for, but I can’t refuse the offer. Don’t tell me about federal guidelines and fair market value. I have eyes. I can smell corruption and manipulation. Doesn’t mean I can prove it, but it’s right in front of my face.”
“It just doesn’t seem like America when someone shows up and says, ‘We’re taking your land for a set price, and you’ll like it or else.’”
Farmer In the Way
According to schedule, construction of the new Spalding County Airport will begin in 2026 and conclude in 2031. Within proximity of Melin’s farm, a groundbreaking ceremony is imminent.
“The lieutenant governor, state officials, politicians, and county commissioners will all be there, backslapping, grinning, and congratulating each other,” Melin notes. “Not a one of them can look me in the eye. Can you imagine if eminent domain was used to take their land to park a jet? No, you can’t imagine such, because that would never happen to them.”
“But I’m just a farmer in their way. They’re happy to take my land and call it ‘progress and public good.’ Force me to sell, take my land, and fly in the billionaires and big companies.”
Grass and dirt in a forced exchange for concrete and asphalt. A farm legacy erased by county, state, and federal seizure. “They’re taking my farmland so rich men can have hangars for their jets,” Melin concludes. “That sound like the ‘public good’ of eminent domain?”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Stealing the Farm: China Continues Raid of US Agriculture by Theft and Agroterror
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
Georgia Watermelon Heist Explodes into Epic Night of Pandemonium
Sisters of Farm Fraud: How 4 Siblings Fleeced USDA for $10M
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
Cold-Busted: Frozen Deer Decoy Nabs Poachers and Cocaine in Spectacular Sting
Sticky Fingers: USDA Fraudster Steals $200M in Stunning Scam
