Concessions designed to make a bad law palatable don't work. The law still is bad and it needs to be killed, not nursed.

State Sen. Scott Richardson of Hilton Head Island needs to put a halt to Senate Bill 296 because it could endanger the health of Calibogue Sound. It would allow muck dredged from Sea Pines marinas and creeks to be dumped in the sound without state oversight.

Four regulatory agencies see such dumping as potentially harmful. Yet a bill sponsored by state Sen. Robert Waldrep, R-Anderson, foolishly would strip the state from having a say in the matter.

Now the state's coastal environmental regulatory agency finds itself paddling against the tide, scrambling to suggest changes to the flawed bill. It offers suggestions that return some state oversight.

State regulators should not have to go begging for authority they already have. A lot of time and effort is being wasted in this charade. The state office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management has better things to do than fend off bad legislation. And state senators should leave environmental regulation, which is working quite well in this case, to the professionals and turn their attention to real problems, such as the state's financial crisis.

Of course the changes to the bill suggested by the coastal regulatory agency are better than the original bill.

But this churning should not divert attention from the bottom line: public oversight of environmental protections should not be compromised in any way. The bill compromises the public.

Why a senator from Anderson is pushing a bill written to impact only dredging in Sea Pines and threaten only our Calibogue Sound remains a mystery that needs an answer.

Richardson took his name off the bill, but the bill remains alive and well. Without Richardson's blessings, why would a senator from Anderson interfere so egregiously in Richardson's district? It doesn't add up.

Waldrep and state Sen. Arthur Ravenel, R-Mount Pleasant, say they are convinced that no environmental damage would occur by dumping dredge material into Calibogue Sound. In all due respect, they are in no position to know that. Professionals are, and professionals have objected.

Even with the suggested changes to the flawed bill, it remains bad public policy. It represents unnecessary -- and unexplained -- political meddling in the protection of the public's natural resources.

This bill needs to be killed, and it is up to Richardson to do it.