FOUR YEARS AGO, Myrtle Beach developer Burroughs & Chapin came to town proposing a project its officers said would transform the Midlands.

The idea was an intriguing one that we considered well worth exploring. Burroughs & Chapin said that over 30 years, $4 billion in investments would be made in its project, named Green Diamond, and 20,000 new jobs created. Green Diamond was projected to generate over $2 billion in public revenues, while costs were projected at $864 million. It was to have created around $1.1 billion in net benefits for Columbia, Richland County and Richland District 1.

Despite its mouth-watering potential, Green Diamond was not an instant hit. While some said it would turn the Midlands into a high-tech mecca, others said it was a speculative land deal that would drain public coffers and put life, limb and property in harm's way. Ultimately, Burroughs & Chapin was not able to overcome questions of risk and liability associated with building a large development on flood-prone land; it is contemplating selling its 4,600 acres along the Congaree River.

Burroughs & Chapin was in some ways as much its own enemy as the environmentalists and others who challenged the project. The developer used its deep pockets to hire a host of consultants, lobbyists and public relations firms in an attempt to win local support. Some people felt Burroughs & Chapin was out to buy favor, not present a compelling case that would get Green Diamond approved on its merits.

Burroughs & Chapin, which often gets its way in Myrtle Beach, had to fight to overcome its reputation as a bully and respond to fears that Myrtle Beach-type development was on its way to the Midlands.

The developer had hoped to do something different in the Midlands. Its officers' idea was to use what they claimed was the largest undeveloped piece of property near a city core along the East Coast to develop a high-tech park that would draw technology-based companies that would bring high-paying jobs. The project would have included homes, shops and a golf course.

Burroughs & Chapin asked for tax breaks to pay for infrastructure, including levees to protect the project from flooding. But opponents, led by the Congaree Task Force, argued that local officials were asking for disaster if they allowed development on land where the fastest and highest waters would flow during a major flood. They also questioned whether taxpayers should pay for infrastructure for the private development.

While Burroughs & Chapin felt its science proved otherwise, it never could convince the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA twice determined that the majority of the land was in the floodway, which is the main reason Green Diamond stalled.

Green Diamond was a complex project, from the floodway debate to discussions about annexation, a multicounty business park, fees in lieu of taxes, special-source revenue bonds and many more issues.

Local elected officials understandably approached it with caution; it never got a full hearing. Some people have wrongly suggested that local elected officials are anti-development, which is far from the truth.

It was not anti-development attitudes or environmentalists that did in Green Diamond, which was a wonderfully innovative idea. Green Diamond, put as simply as possible, was proposed for the wrong location.