News - Building Our City

Sunday, Aug. 13, 2006

For river revelers, party's almost over

By JEFF WILKINSON - JWILKINSON@THESTATE.COM

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The days of unsupervised, freewheeling partying and tubing on the Saluda rapids around Riverbanks Zoo are numbered.

The River Alliance is advertising for bids today for an estimated $5.8 million project to extend the Three Rivers Greenway northwest of downtown Columbia, along the Saluda River. The trail would run up the east bank of the Saluda, in front of Riverbanks Zoo, to I-26. It then would cross a new pedestrian bridge into Lexington County. As part of the new greenway, the popular, if somewhat lawless, section of river around the zoo would become a city park - with a permanent ranger station - by next summer.

It would mean that the often-dangerous Mill Race Rapids would come under the rules and regulations of all city parks - meaning no alcohol unless a special event was held.

It also would eliminate trash, trashy conduct and drug use, officials said.

River enthusiast Jennifer McMillan had mixed feelings about the changes.

The 26-year-old single mom visits the river two or three times a week - sometimes to play in the shallow water with her 3-year-old daughter, Samantha, and sometimes to tube and party with her friends.

"I was excited about the fact we were going to get some nice facilities and be able to get down there easier," she said. "But finding out they are going to impose those rules, I'm not excited at all."

Generations of people have gotten used to using that part of the river as their own backyard. On pleasant weekends, sometimes hundreds will gather on the river's rocks on either side of the zoo.

Sometimes, the fun takes a bad turn.

Dozens of people have died in the dangerous water. And rescue workers frequently pull drunken revelers from the stiff current, which becomes even stiffer with SCE&G's periodic release of water from Lake Murray.

The new rules "will be a big change," Columbia Mayor Bob Coble said, acknowledging that the no-alcohol rule will not sit well with some longtime river runners and rock hoppers.

"The conduct is going to change," Coble said. "But this will increase and enhance accessibility and make it into a park that everyone can use."

Brian Godfrey, 30, a Columbia construction worker, has been going to the rapids since he was a child. Now, he visits every week or two.

Plenty of people, he said, including families, enjoy the area - beer and all.

"That's the way it was for years, even when I was a little kid and my mother took me down there," Godfrey said of the drinking. "I don't always drink, but people should be able to if they want to.

"At first, a lot of people are going to jail. And then they are going to migrate to some other place on the river, and you will just have the homeless people down there."

Besides the park, other features of the large stretch - one of the final legs of the 13-mile greenway - include:

A kayak and canoe put-in and access road

A pedestrian bridge hanging from the exit ramp where I-126 joins I-26

A possible link to Lexington Medical Center in West Columbia

THREE KEY PROJECTS REMAIN

The section is one of the largest to be built on the linear park, which eventually will stretch 13 miles or more along the rivers from Columbia's downtown.

To date, the governments of Richland and Lexington counties, Columbia, West Columbia and Cayce have spent a combined $12.3 million on the park.

They have completed or are building seven sections of the park. But the three biggest projects - all on the Columbia side - have yet to be tackled:

The esplanade, or public walkway, fronting the CanalSide development on the old state prison site should begin in about six months at a cost of about $5 million.

CanalFront, behind EdVenture Children's Museum, should begin in about a year at a estimated cost of $7 million.

The Guignard family, which owns 90 acres of riverfront property, and USC have ambitious plans for a riverfront park estimated to cost $63.4 million.

City officials said they have the $12 million in hand to build the esplanade and CanalFront.

The money is from federal transportation funds, hospitality tax-funded bonds and a special tax district in the Vista that redirects taxes collected on new construction.

But funding for the massive and expensive university- and Guignard-driven riverfront park has yet to be determined.

Another sticky problem is how to bridge the confluence of the Saluda and Broad rivers - where they meet to form the Congaree near downtown Columbia - for which city officials have earmarked $3 million.

River Alliance executive director Mike Dawson said the intergovernmental organization envisions a series of low rock-hopping bridges, a suspension bridge or a concrete-and-steel bridge like the one at Riverbanks Zoo. The span would connect the new Saluda Riverwalk with the existing section near Riverfront Park and the Columbia Canal.

However, Columbia special projects administrator Shawn Epps said officials are "still studying the feasibility" of any bridge.

ON THE SALUDA

While SCE&G and Riverbanks Zoo own most of the land along the river where the new Saluda Riverwalk is going, the greenway will skirt the edge of three privately owned parcels. Dawson said negotiations with those landowners are under way and don't appear to be major obstacles.

"We're all singing from the same page," said Lance Garrison, the agent for Saluda River Partners, which owns one five-acre parcel on the northern stretch of the new park. Garrison believes the trail will enhance property values.

The first phase of the Saluda Riverwalk needs to be completed by July so it will be ready for the Junior Wildwater World Championships next summer.

Columbia and Charlotte will jointly host the July 8-14 event, with four days of competition at the new man-made white-water facility in Charlotte and four days of longer races on the Saluda near Riverbanks.

Columbia should get international television exposure, especially in paddling-crazed Europe. Thousands of fans crowded the banks of the Noce River in Mezzana, Italy, for the 2005 world championships. The crowds in Columbia will need a place to watch the event, and the greenway trails would be ideal.

The Saluda's last brush with international fame came in 1996, when several international paddling teams used it for training before heading to the Atlanta Olympics.

Downstream, on the Lexington County side of the Congaree River:

A southern extension of the Cayce Riverwalk to Riverland Park is nearly complete. Workers have built wide boardwalks and uncovered a small, hidden waterfall.

West Columbia officials have reached a settlement with residents of the Bridgepointe condominium tower that will allow the city to complete a northern extension of the West Columbia Riverwalk along Sunset Boulevard.

The settlement for the 40-plus residents was a total of $10,000, along with improvements to the greenway near the Gervais Street bridge that would protect the residents' privacy.

All in all, the recent extensions are expected to bring more exposure to the greenway, which remains a bit of a mystery to some but is seen as a historic multigovernmental effort to provide access to one of metro Columbia's most valuable resources.

Still, not everyone is happy.

As the greenway began to be developed, Dave Lynds, 47, of Columbia, said he knew changes were coming to the rowdy area near the rapids.

"I could see this happening years ago. It was inevitable."

How much the mood changes depends on what the city allows. If the city really cracks down, Lynds said, "people will find other places to go."

Staff writer Joey Holleman contributed to this report.

Reach Wilkinson at (803) 771-8495.

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