It is easy for Dr. Jean Everett to see the forest for the trees. Slogging
into the woods off Halfway Creek Road, she disappeared into a stand of longleaf
pines in the Francis Marion National Forest. The senior biologist from the
College of Charleston was eager to illustrate the importance of the isolated
wetlands bill that's stalled in the Legislature.
The bill was endorsed by parties as diverse as the Coastal Conservation
League and the S.C. Association of Realtors. It would require state Department
of Health and Environmental Control permits for impacts to isolated wetlands of
more than half an acre and mitigation of those impacts.
But if mitigation means turning the wetland into a stormwater retention pond,
conservationists say the solution is still problematic.
Federal guidelines under the Bush administration allow man-made lakes and
stormwater retention ponds to be considered wetlands, even though they might be
full of pollution.
Walking into the forest with Everett and
Coastal Conservation League Land Use Director Jane Lareau, pines abruptly
gave way to carnivorous pitcher plants and a stand of cypress trees rising from
smooth, tea-colored waters. Before bounding into the isolated wetland in a pair
of rubber boots, Everett said, "I have to tell you, there's a huge cottonmouth
in here."
And that's not all.
Floating along the surface among the exposed cypress knees and lily pads were
carnivorous plants called bladderworts. "These are very ecologically rich little
ponds," she said.
Pristine spots such as this are primary watering and nesting spots for larger
species of wildlife, including wood ducks, bobcats, black bears and all manner
of birds.
Wetlands
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What protections?
Like countless other unidentified isolated wetlands DHEC estimates cover more
than 300,000 acres of the state, this tiny protected sanctuary is little more
than a shallow indention in the landscape, unconnected to a larger stream or
body of water.
In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a portion of the Clean Water Act
that covered these wetlands. This removed what conservationists consider crucial
protections that apply to larger bodies of water, and left the decision on how
to treat these parcels up to individual states or landowners.
According to Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Bonneau, chairman of the Senate Agriculture
Committee, DHEC claims jurisdiction over isolated wetlands but its rules are not
clearly drawn.
DHEC oversees development around isolated wetlands in the coastal counties
under its office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management and through the
state's pollution and stormwater control laws. Lacking a clear set of
regulations, a developer could fill in a wetland with OCRM approval but later be
sued by DHEC or an environmental group for a violation of the Pollution Control
Act and be required to restore the wetland.
Back in the forest, Lareau and Everett ran into Jake Duncan near the edge of
a spectacular island of cypress that rose amid a grass-bottomed stand of
longleaf pines. A former wetlands expert for the Army Corps of Engineers, Duncan
runs D&D Wetland and Endangered Species Training, a local environmental
education company.
Duncan said a federally endangered flatwood salamander had been found about
four years ago near the first pond Everett visited. He said too many small
wetlands across the state that are critical to amphibians already have been
allowed to disappear through the Army Corps and the state. Grooms' bill wasn't
perfect, he said, because it didn't protect wetlands smaller than a half-acre,
but it was a turn in the right direction.
"After permitting them all away, they've become rare things," he said.
But is it a wetland?
In March, former U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced that the
United States moved beyond "no net loss" to a "net gain" of wetlands. The gain
of some 191,000 acres was accomplished from 1998 to 2004 because the Interior
Department began including stormwater ponds at golf courses, shopping centers
and subdivisions in its definition of "wetland."
In Mount Pleasant, Lareau stood at the edge of Towne Centre's algae-filled
pond and pointed to a sheen of what appeared to be oil on top of the water. The
pond was doing its job, she said, because it was keeping the oil out of area
marshes. Pollutants gather in the ponds and can settle on the bottom.
"But there's nothing environmental about this," she said. "It doesn't clean
the water, it doesn't treat it. It may allow sediment to settle out, but it's
clearly not a wetland."
Lareau said Norton's designation was dangerous because if a developer wanted
to fill in 1 acre of natural isolated wetlands, he could build a 2-acre
stormwater pond system and claim an acre "net gain" of wetlands.
Nearby in Belle Hall Plantation, a pair of aerating fountains was losing the
battle to algae in stormwater ponds in Hibben neighborhood. Alongside a snowy
egret and a wooden duck house, a sheen of oil and a powdery white substance
Everett said was not pollen floated on the water. Lareau said runoff that sinks
to the bottom of these ponds will have to be dredged out, with property owners
footing the bills for pollution cleanup.
At Ivy Hall, Everett found a murky, grass-lined pond she identified from an
aerial photo taken before development as a former forested isolated wetland. She
was stunned to find a rare carnivorous sundew plant growing low among the grass,
but she was equally surprised by the lack of life in the water. "It's also
insane that the state government hasn't stepped in to protect isolated wetlands
because they're so ecologically valuable," Lareau said. "That pond ? that's
disgusting. There's just nothing there."
Wetlands
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About the bill
Senate Bill 1260, sponsored by Sen. Larry Grooms, would require state
Department of Health and Environmental Control permits for impacts to wetlands
of more than half an acre and mitigation of the impacts that occur. The bill has
stalled in the Senate; it's been held up by its relatively late submission,
time-consuming property tax reform legislation and a handful of legislators who
Grooms said oppose almost all oversight of wetlands on private property.
Grooms said he has the two-thirds majority necessary to overcome objections
and bring the bill to the floor. He will reintroduce the bill next year if it
fails to make it to the floor this session.
Reach Chris Dixon at 745-5855 or cdixon@postandcourier.com.
