CHATSWORTH, Ga. — Jerome Shields says he was surprised to see his family’s farm on what appears to be a future development map prepared during the planning for the Appalachian Regional Port in Murray County.

“No one had consulted us on that. We had no idea,” he said.

The family learned their 140-acre farm was one of the sites outlined on the map earlier this year after a group opposed to the port filed an open records request with the Georgia Ports Authority and received the map as part of a massive number of documents.

That’s also how Marvin Crumbley, another Murray County farmer, found his property was included on the map.

“I wasn’t very happy when I found out,” he said. “From what I’ve heard, that means it’s considered a site to store containers and that sort of thing.”

Gov. Nathan Deal announced the Appalachian Regional Port in July at the Murray County courthouse, where officials from the state, the ports authority, CSX railroad and Murray County signed a memorandum of understanding for the port.

Commercial trucks will drop off and pick up loads at the port, which will be connected to the Port of Savannah by CSX.

The port, expected to be operational in 2018, will be built on 42 acres of cattle pasture just off U.S. 411 near the Petty-Fairy Valley Park.

The future development map, which was provided to The Daily Citizen by North Georgia Citizens to Preserve the Environment, shows some two dozen properties in the northern part of the county, totaling well over 3,000 acres.

John Trent, senior director of strategic operations and safety for the Georgia Ports Authority, said the map was prepared simply to show the number of large parcels of land in the area around the port.

“Just in case anybody is interested in building a distribution center or something like that,” he said at a recent presentation on the port at the Rotary Club of Dalton. “But we aren’t going to go in there and do some giant land grab.”

Murray County Sole Commissioner Brittany Pittman agreed but acknowledged that companies seeking to be near the port might find some of those properties attractive.

“But they would have to negotiate with the owner of the property. The owner would have to agree to sell it,” she said.

Both Pittman and Trent say the county and the ports authority do not plan to use eminent domain to take any of that property.

But that doesn’t ease the minds of some of those whose property appears on the map. They point to Johnston County, N.C., where local officials are discussing using eminent domain to seize some 450 acres from private owners for a new terminal for CSX.

“There are some very concerned farmers and they want some reassurance, maybe something in writing, that their land is not going to be taken from them,” said Shields. “We are concerned about it. We’ve lost a lot of sleep over it. This is our livelihood.”

Attorney J.D. Rogers has sent an open letter on behalf of 31 of those property owners to the ports authority, the county and CSX asking them to make a public commitment not to use eminent domain.

Rogers acknowledges that such a statement would not bind either the ports authority or the county from using eminent domain in the future. He also notes that if either the county or the ports authority does use eminent domain, property owners have little defense. But the U.S. Constitution does require that owners receive “just compensation” for any property taken by eminent domain, and he says he will fight vigorously to make sure that any of his clients receive a just amount for their land.