Sunday, Jul. 05, 2009

Dredging approved after senators intervened

DHEC about-face raises questions

GEORGETOWN — After two state senators intervened, South Carolina’s environmental protection agency approved a controversial dredging project that the department had rejected twice because of pollution concerns.

Sens. Yancey McGill and Ray Cleary contacted the Department of Health and Environmental Control at least four times from August to December 2006 on behalf of Wedgefield Plantation property owners who favored the dredging work, court and agency records show.

Those kinds of contacts are at the center of a discussion over DHEC’s ability to withstand lobbying from state legislators.

In this case, agency officials insist politics did not influence their change of heart. But people on both sides of the dispute agree the lawmakers got DHEC’s attention.

South Carolina’s fifth-largest agency, DHEC is responsible for more than 150 environmental and health programs that touch the lives of most state residents. Many say South Carolina’s government, which emphasizes a strong legislature and weak governor, makes it harder for DHEC to say no when lawmakers call on behalf of constituents.

The contacts by McGill and Cleary included telephone calls and conversations with top DHEC officials, records obtained by The State newspaper show.

In July 2007 — after the senators’ contacts — the department reversed course and approved the dredging of a series of man-made boating canals along 81 lots in the community of several hundred large homes, according to agency environmental reports and Wedgefield homeowner e-mails.

The state’s authorization allows the Wedgefield property owners to dump piles of mud scraped from the canals into 12.8 acres of freshwater marsh and wetland forest nearby.

Attorneys Amy Armstrong and Jimmy Chandler, who fought the dredging unsuccessfully in court, said they’ve never seen a DHEC case where political influence was so obvious.

“We’ve suspected that this goes on in a number of cases and have had (DHEC) staff tell us there has been contact — but what makes this case stand out is the documentation,” said Chandler, who along with Armstrong dug up dozens of homeowners’ e-mails describing the political effort to change DHEC’s mind.

WHERE TO PUT THE MUCK?

State regulators generally discourage using wetlands to dump mud from dredging projects.

That’s part of the reason that in 2004 DHEC officials denied the Georgetown County dredging, saying the project would pollute the Black River, which already was suffering water quality problems. They also noted that trucking mud from the dredging to a landfill, rather than dumping it in the nearby wetland, was a reasonable alternative.

When they reversed the decision in 2007, DHEC officials noted that piling dredged mud onto the 12.8-acre wetland could save property owners nearly $10 million because they won’t have to pay to dispose of the muck farther away, records show. Using the wetland would cost $1 million or less, the records show.

Federal regulators this spring signed off on the work after receiving notice that DHEC had approved dredging the canals. By federal law, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could not issue a wetlands permit for the work without DHEC’s approval.

Armstrong said DHEC’s decision will turn a healthy, Lowcountry wetland into a wasteland of mud. It will take years for the ecosystem to recover, she said.

“A few private individuals gain at the expense of public resources,” Armstrong said. She and Chandler represented the Georgetown League of Women Voters and the S.C. Coastal Conservation League in an unsuccessful challenge of DHEC’s decision.

Cleary, R-Georgetown, said he didn’t ask DHEC to approve the dredging. He said he just wanted to help property owners navigate the bureaucracy.

“I know that I either called or wrote and said, ‘I think this needs to be relooked at,’” Cleary said. “What I tried to do was get one-on-one contact” between homeowners and DHEC.

McGill, D-Williamsburg, said he could not remember much about his involvement.

South Carolina’s ethics law doesn’t bar legislators from contacting state agencies and in many cases allows lawmakers to call about a pending permit.

Rheta Geddings, a veteran water quality regulator at DHEC, said the agency made a “mistake” when it refused to approve the dredging in 2004 and 2006.

DHEC authorized the project in 2007 after determining that mud dumped on the wetland would not pollute the Black River as initially feared. The mistake centered on the condition of earthen dikes surrounding the disposal site. DHEC at first thought the dikes were in poor shape but later learned they were intact and would protect the Black River from pollutants, agency officials say.

Agency officials note that the corps and other natural resource agencies that comment on such decisions also changed their minds. The new information from the homeowners made the difference, Geddings said.

Geddings said she had no contact with either senator. DHEC agency head Commissioner Earl Hunter said he doesn’t specifically remember meeting or talking with the senators about Wedgefield.

Geddings bristled at the suggestion that politics changed DHEC’s mind.

“It was very insulting,” she said.

STRANDED BOATS

To Wedgefield residents Mike and Jude Davis, the local senators are heroes.

The Davises retired to Wedgefield from the Washington, D.C., area and have lived on a man-made canal at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac for more than five years. The deck behind their house provides a sweeping view of the old rice fields that dominate the Lowcountry’s tidal marshes.

Each year since they moved in, the Davises have noticed more silt clogging the canal they use for boating.

Sometimes at low tide, the canal turns into little more than a mud flat behind the Davis home, according to photographs they have taken. All around, gooey mud bakes in the sun.

Only when the tide rolls in is there enough water in the canal to take their boat to the Black River.

The lack of water is bound to affect property values at Wedgefield, the Davises said. Waterfront houses in Wedgefield are valued at $275,000 to $350,000, according to the Georgetown County assessor’s office.

“Many people when they bought here paid a premium to be on the water, and they had deep water — and things changed,” said Jude Davis, who with her husband has been active in seeking permission to dredge the canals.

Mike Davis said homeowners had tried for years to gain approval to dredge. Since 2001, homeowners have spent $150,000 on consultants, lawyers and other costs, the couple estimate.

When they asked DHEC again for permission to dredge in 2006, homeowners claimed they had information DHEC never knew about. That’s when Wedgefield’s environmental consultant, Bobby Riggs, said politicians might be able to help.

A Wedgefield resident active in local politics then contacted Cleary and McGill and set up a meeting to develop a strategy, an Aug. 10, 2006, homeowner e-mail shows.

From that point, either McGill or Cleary began contacting DHEC. The contacts included:

-- An Aug. 15, 2006, telephone conversation that included a Wedgefield property owner, McGill and “the head of DHEC,” according to an e-mail. The e-mail does not identify him by name, but Hunter, the commissioner, is the agency’s chief executive. Hunter said he doesn’t remember talking to McGill about the dredging.

-- A conversation Cleary had with the “chairman” of DHEC, according to a Sept. 1, 2006, homeowner e-mail. It was unclear if he was referring to Hunter or then-agency board chair Elizabeth Hagood. The DHEC board upheld the permit issued by staffers. The State newspaper’s attempts to reach Hagood for comment were unsuccessful.

-- A “thank-you” note from Cleary to Hunter and Geddings before the agency made a final decision on the permit. The note was referred to in a Sept. 13, 2006, Wedgefield homeowner’s e-mail. DHEC’s public records office was unable to find a copy of the letter, but Hunter said he might have gotten a note.

-- A phone call from Cleary to DHEC in late 2006. “Sen. Cleary has called looking for an update on Wedgefield Plantation in Georgetown County,” DHEC staffer Mark Hough said in a Dec. 15, 2006, e-mail to a co-worker. “He says that they are friends/constituents of both his and Sen. McGill.”

In the fall of 2006, DHEC began to indicate it would review the case. DHEC approved the dredging in July 2007.

McGill and Cleary “were instrumental” in helping change DHEC’s mind, homeowner Mike Davis said.

“We view it as getting something from our elected representatives that we pay them to do —to get an agency to pay attention to a request from constituents. And they did.”

Of McGill and Cleary, Davis said homeowners were not “looking for special favors, but asking you to help us get this moving one way or the other.”

Riggs, the homeowners’ consultant, said elected officials got the agency to pay attention.

“It is a result of political influence,” Riggs said in a Sept. 7, 2006, e-mail to a Wedgefield dredging supporter.

DHEC’s Hunter said the agency was glad to look at the issue again.

“My standard comment to staff .æ.æ. is just follow what the law allows us to do,” Hunter said of how he handles lawmakers’ calls or calls from others. “If it gives us flexibility to relook at something, then I think that’s appropriate.”

POLITICS VS. NATURE?

The area where the dredging will occur is west of Pawleys Island and a short boat ride up the Black River from Georgetown.

It is tucked into an area of historic plantations, ancient rice fields, cypress trees and graceful wading birds.

From a large bend in the river, it’s easy to see a forested wetland next to one of two main channels that link the Black River to Wedgefield Plantation. The dumping is to take place here.

Opponents of the project didn’t protest the actual dredging but the dumping.

DHEC officials note that the wetland had received government approval earlier, in 1983, as a site for dumping muck from Wedgefield. But some old sites, if still in good shape, can still be used, DHEC officials said.

Even so, biologist Bob Schuhmacher said the agency could have taken a harder stand. The Wedgefield site hasn’t been used in decades and is an important part of the natural landscape of the Black River, he said.

Schuhmacher is a Pawleys Island resident who is a retired biology professor from Kean University in New Jersey. He testified in 2008 as an expert witness against the dredging project. He said DHEC’s decision could set a precedent that would make it easier to turn other wetlands and marshes into dump sites for dredged mud. That’s important because wetlands protect water quality by filtering pollutants that run off the land.

“If you allow a wetland that is functional to be destroyed because property owners want to dig out a canal, there is a precedent that other people can do it,” Schuhmacher said.

“Then you have a domino effect, which has a major impact to the whole system,” he said. “The wetlands we have down here are a treasure to South Carolina.”

DHEC’s decision in this case will smother the wetlands, he said.

“You are going to suffocate whatever is there,” he said. “Even six inches of mud will kill off the plant life.”

But Hunter insists that it is his agency’s obligation to listen when new information surfaces.

“We work for the citizens,” he said. “They pay our salaries.”

Reach Fretwell at (803) 771-8537.

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