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Article published: Jul 24, 2005
BRIDGE TOO FAR
or an ECONOMIC LIFELINE?

Between Sumter and Calhoun counties there runs a nine-mile stretch of road that thus far exists only in the imaginations of those who see it as a turning point for the communities surrounding northern Lake Marion.

Whether this connector heralds more prosperous lives for the people of those counties or portends pollution and government waste depends upon whose vision of the future one believes.

The back-and-forth battle over the Briggs-DeLaine-Pearson Connector will heat up again this fall, when the South Carolina Department of Transportation applies for permits from the Army Corps of Engineers, a process that includes public comment periods and that can take, even for normal projects, up to a year.

The connector is anything but a normal project, though.

Those opposed to it say it will ruin one of the last pristine areas in South Carolina, Sparkleberry Swamp, and costs far too much with far too little benefit.

Those who support the connector say it can lift the area out of poverty and push the local economy into the 21st century.

Like the counties of Sumter and Calhoun, there is not much to connect the two points of view.
CONNECTION TO THE PAST
The idea for a bridge from Lone Star to Rimini has been around for years.

In the 1960s, the General Assembly passed a bill creating the Orangeburg-Calhoun-Sumter Toll Bridge Authority.

The plan was to build a toll bridge between Lone Star and Rimini, but studies showed the bridge couldn't support itself through tolls.

"It appears, however, that the proposed project has merit and it is believed that further study should be directed toward supplemental means of financing," wrote Wilbur Smith of Wilbur Smith and Associates in a 1969 cover letter to the Highway Department.

The Wilbur Smith study is naturally a product of its time. Environmental assessments weren't thought of in those days. And the description of the Lake Marion region might sound foreign to people struggling with job layoffs in the area today.

"The economy of the local region around Lake Marion is vigorous and growing. In most of the comparisons, growth rates exceed those in the state," the report notes.

The report also speculates that the construction of I-95 through the area "should produce significant traffic increases in the corridor of the proposed bridge."

More than 30 years later, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., who has become the bridge's champion in the past seven years, seizes on that idea when talking about the connector.

He remembers the old rickety wooden 301 bridge across Lake Marion, a bridge that was long ago replaced by the concrete span of Interstate 95.

The I-95 bridge is the reason the town of Santee still exists and is thriving, he said. Without I-95, Santee would look like Lone Star — a few dilapidated historic buildings, off-kilter rural homes and not a place in sight to buy gas, a sandwich or a cup of coffee.

A bridge connecting Sumter and Orangeburg and traveling through Lone Star and Rimini could do for those small towns what I-95 did for Santee, he said.

Clyburn believes the bridge will bring traffic through the area, encourage development and increase the value of the land.

He has pushed for the connector since he first learned of the old plans. He says the people of the area — mostly poor and black — have finally elected someone they can trust — not a politician who will make promises of building a bridge with absolutely no intention of ever following through.

The bridge wasn't built all those years ago, he said, because the people in the area didn't have any political clout.

"It's about who has influence," Clyburn said.

And many of the politicians back then believed there were "some people you're not supposed to keep your promises to," he said.

Clyburn points to a letter written to the legislative delegation in 1998 by former state Rep. James Cuttino shortly before he died. In it Cuttino urges the delegation to support the bridge project, which he initiated in the 1960s.

Other legislators from that era confessed to him before they died that they were ashamed of ignoring the people of that area, Clyburn said.

He also points to a Fluor Daniel Consulting report that advocated the idea of a bridge.

"Why wasn't action taken on the 1996 Fluor Daniel report that 'the most important single project' to bringing economic development to the region is a bridge in the same location?" he asked in a 2002 press release.

Although the report did back the bridge, it didn't say it was the most important project for economic development.

"The most important single project which would allow for greater access between the two hub communities is linking the roads which currently end at Rimini and Lone Star," the report states.

In addition to the bridge, the report recommends that Sumter, Lee, Clarendon, Calhoun and Orangeburg counties work together on a regional water plan and on developing a "specific, coordinated development plan for the lake (focusing on tourism, recreation and retirement/resort development)."

For several years the proposed bridge bore Clyburn's name as the Clyburn Connector. The name became a lightning rod of sorts, with some claiming that Clyburn wanted the glory of a bridge with his name on it.

Even today, two years after the bridge was renamed the Briggs-DeLaine-Pearson Connector, some still see it as a vanity project.
A BRIDGE TOO FAR?
The list of organizations that oppose the connector runs the gamut from national environmental groups to local sportsmen's groups to government agencies.

The Sierra Club, the Southern Environmental Law Center, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the South Carolina Wildlife Federation have all gone on record in opposition.

Mark Caldwell, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said his agency is concerned about the development the bridge would encourage.

"We're trying to look at future impacts," he said.

Development that occurs upland of the lake, for instance, will create more stormwater runoff, which will affect the water quality, he said.

The bridge's influence will be felt by more than just the three acres of wetlands that the Department of Transportation will have to purchase in order to build the connector, he said.

"The impacts of this project are very significant, and we are opposed to it," he said.

Right now the agency is in a reactive mode, he said, waiting for the Corps to act so the service can add its comments to the record.

Conservationist groups, however, aren't waiting for the next public comment period to make their disapproval known. Several sent an alert to their members earlier this year asking members to contact their representatives and ask the lawmakers to remove funding for the connector from the latest federal transportation bill.

Bob Guild of the Sierra Club said his group respects Clyburn, who has a solid environmental record, but parts ways with him over the connector.

"It's our belief that the proposed connector bridge is both environmentally destructive and the wrong way to apply resources to accomplish the prosperity of those communities," he said.

The discovery of an ivory billed woodpecker, long believed extinct, in Arkansas has given environmentalists new hope and a new argument against the bridge. The Santee River watershed is one of the last remaining tracts of bottomland forest, Guild said — an ideal homestead for the ivory billed woodpecker.

Guild believes that locals, conservationists and sportsmen could work together to promote eco-tourism in the area, which he says could provide a long-term, sustainable basis for development.

Promoting highway development would be a step backward, he said, not just for the environment but for the people of the area. That type of development would only bring jobs at fast food restaurants or gas stations, he said — low-wage, entry-level jobs that cannot lay the foundation for economic growth.

Instead, the unspoiled rural landscape, he said, "would be sacrificed for a 7-11 or two or a McDonald's or two."

Sumter native Jane Lareau now works with the Coastal Conservation League and has been fighting the connector for years. She takes issue with Clyburn's frequent statement that the environmental impact statement shows the connector won't negatively affect the environment.

The very fact that DOT had to conduct an environmental impact statement shows there will be an impact, she said.

According to the National Environmental Policy Act, when federal money is used on a project, the acting agency must do an environmental assessment, a quick assessment that results in one of two possible findings: no significant environmental impact or significant impact.

If the assessment determines there will be significant impacts, according to the Federal Highway Administration, then the more thorough impact statement must be completed.

"The environmental impact statement did not say there would be no environmental impact. The EIS laid out what the impacts would be," Lareau said.

Consultants who conduct impact statements on behalf of agencies that want to get a project done can be inclined to finesse the findings in a particular direction, Lareau said, and her organization believes the connector's impact statement was "extremely poor."

In her own lifetime, Lareau has seen all the wild places she remembers from her youth paved over, victims of sprawl.

"There comes a point where you have to say, are we going to put roads and houses everywhere?" she said.

Just because an area is rural doesn't mean there's something inherently wrong with it, she said. Further, she said, substantial development hasn't come to the I-95 corridor, so plopping down a road, with no money set aside for maintenance, won't necessarily help the people there.

Most of the opposition falls into one of the two categories outlined by Guild: those who believe the bridge will ruin the environment and others who believe the bridge is a colossal waste of public funds.

The most succinct comment in the past seven years probably belongs to Sims Moorer of Cameron, who wrote on a comment card after a November 2001 public meeting, "Save the money."
DIVIDED BY MORE THAN WATER
Sifting through the DOT's files reveals that the weight of public opinion appears to be against the project. The majority of letters and comment cards seem to oppose the project, although other measures show a pretty close split in opinion.

A March 2000 informational meeting in Cameron attracted 29 people, of whom 19 completed questionnaires. Even that early in the process, opinion was split — nine said they didn't think the project would benefit the area and eight said they thought it would.

Clyburn, however, doesn't believe those cards are a true measure of local opinion. The people who support the bridge are for the most part poor and uneducated and aren't comfortable speaking in public or filling out forms, he said. He thinks a petition by Citizens of Calhoun County is a much clearer indication of support: That petition garnered 1,571 signatures in support of the connector.

Five opposing petitions, by sportsmen of Sumter County, the Sumter-Wateree Club, the Brohun Lake Club of Sumter County and two unaffiliated groups, collected 1,288 signatures.

The environmental impact statement acknowledges the discord.

"Public input ... resulted in a common opinion that the funds for this project would be better spent on other transportation system improvements, or on other needs such as education," the report states.

Asad Khattak, a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, reviewed the draft environmental impact statement in 2001 and submitted a 13-page critique of the report.

He said some of the data was incomplete, and the economic and transportation analysis was "based on assumptions that are presented with no documentation."

"It is important that the economic benefit analysis quantify the degree to which the bridge leads to truly new benefits for the region as opposed to simply shifting or redistributing existing resources and jobs," he wrote.

Some residents say they don't want economic development in the area; they moved to the country to get away from that kind of growth.

Sandra Boddie and W.R. Marks live near Low Falls Landing in Calhoun County. The two sat outside their home on a recent summer afternoon, enjoying the sounds of the approaching evening — birds chirping and insects buzzing. It's rare that a car passes by, but every so often they can hear a train in the distance.

Their street is a mixture of generously sized wooden cabins and mobile homes. They moved there in 1996, though Boddie still commutes to the Columbia area.

She doesn't mind the drive — it's only a hop, skip and jump to Interstate 26, and she chooses to make the commute because she wants to live near the lake.

"I describe it as living two blocks from heaven," Boddie said.

The couple hopes the bridge never becomes reality.

"Somebody needs to take care of the greenery that we've still got," Marks said. Besides, he doesn't think the bridge will boost the local economies.

"You might as well take the money and drop it down there and let it float down the river," he said.

Three houses down, Jan and John Pittard express a similar opinion.

"Building that bridge would not put one dollar in either community," John Pittard said.

Jan Pittard understands what Clyburn is trying to do, but she thinks the money would be far better spent replacing the existing 601 bridge.

Highway 601 connects to U.S. 378 about midway between Sumter and Columbia. The DOT is in the public comment period for its plans to replace the bridge, and several environmental groups have suggested that replacing or repairing existing infrastructure in poor condition would be a better use of federal dollars.

Clyburn, however, said he has no interest in the 601 bridge, which has nothing to do with his goals for the area.

Yet disbelief about what the Lone Star-Rimini connector would actually accomplish for the region is a common thread among those who oppose it.

John Logue, a professor of biology at the University of South Carolina Sumter, is quite familiar with Sparkleberry Swamp from his many trips to the area. A botanist, he enjoys the serenity of the swamp. He would like to see untrammeled wild places preserved, and he has reservations about the connector's price tag.

At the same time, he thinks some of the environmentalists' arguments against the bridge are exaggerated. After all, I-95 splits the Santee National Wildlife Refuge into two, and the highway doesn't seem to have hurt the wildlife there, he said.

"I think in the zeal of some to defeat this, maybe some of their ideas are overstated," he said.

Clyburn thinks there's more to the opposition than a desire to protect the environment.
PLAYING THE RACE CARD
Perhaps inevitably in South Carolina, race has crept into the debate.

The race factor usually lurks in the shadows; rarely does it show up as dramatically as one comment card in DOT's files that asked where "blackhead" — apparently referring to Clyburn — would steal the money from to pay for the bridge.

But Clyburn believes race and money have always been and continue to be two major reasons people oppose the connector.

Why, he asks, after the environmental impact statement has said there won't be environmental damage, after he has promised to secure federal funds to pay for the construction — why do people continue to oppose the bridge?

"It comes down to the people who live there," he said.

Several years ago, Clyburn said, he met with representatives of environmental groups. He pledged that if the impact statement said his plan would hurt the environment, he would drop it. He then asked, he said, if the environmentalists would support the bridge if the statement found it would do no harm.

"Not a single one would open their mouths. A lot of times what's not said is more important than what's said," he noted.

The environmentalists also told him they had an economist developing a plan for "green tourism" for the area as an alternative to building the bridge, he said. Clyburn said he's still waiting for their economic plan.

"They're just liars. That's what they are," he said.

If most of the landowners in the area were white, he said, and they wanted a bridge, no one would be arguing about the validity of the project.

Lareau calls that assertion "ridiculous."

"Race has absolutely nothing to do with this. We fight roads all over the state," she said.

The Coastal Conservation League has a long history of working with minorities on environmental justice projects, she said.

She acknowledged that the national conservation groups they had consulted about an eco-tourism plan didn't come up with any suggestions, so the state groups couldn't provide a plan to Clyburn. However, she believes residents could benefit from making the area a destination without building a road. For example, the swamp's natural assets far outweigh the landscape of Lake Okeechobee in Florida, she said. It just needs to be marketed.

A road, however, would ruin the area's drawing power, she said.
A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE
Clyburn's birthplace visibly frustrates him with what he says is a lack of imagination and vision. He has great plans for his district, and he doesn't understand why people can't look at what similar projects have done for other areas of the state, and country, and envision a similar effect rippling outward from Rimini and Lone Star.

"Hilton Head would not be what it is today if not for the (U.S. 278) bridge," he said.

South Carolina could build on its natural resources in any number of ways, he said. He thinks a golf course trail similar to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama would be a natural fit.

And South Carolina could draw tourists by capitalizing on its history in the way that Massachusetts does, he said. For example, Revolutionary war hero Francis Marion roamed these woods, though "many of his hiding places, we're told, (are) where the lake is now."

"You're never going to take advantage of it if we don't build this bridge," Clyburn said.

An available transportation network is the key to tourism, he said.

"It's about access. It's about mobility," he said.

Further, he sees development along Lake Marion as a "when," not an "if."

He is determined that the poor, rural blacks of the area will benefit from that development.

Right now their only wealth is their land, which isn't worth much, he said. As developers snatch up land to build resorts, hotels, golf courses and lake hideaways, land values will increase.

But who will benefit?

"I want the bridge to come before these people are squeezed out," Clyburn said.

He already sees Charleston developers buying land around Santee.

"They are coming, and I want this part of those counties to benefit from it," he said.

Clyburn is outraged that Calhoun County closed two schools in a poor, black area of the county a few years ago and now buses students to white areas to go to school.

Increased property values would mean the county could support schools near those black students' homes, he said.

He doesn't worry that residents wouldn't be able to pay the increased taxes on their land — most of these people have children who've moved away to pursue professional careers, and those children could help pay the taxes, he said.

And landowners have told him they would be inclined to build on their land — and thus pay even higher taxes — if they had water and sewer.

The bridge is just one piece of the puzzle, he said. Water and sewer, which he's working to establish through the Lake Marion Regional Water Agency, is another important piece.

Clyburn said he rejected the first bridge design, which was more of a causeway, because it would have harmed the environment.

He was willing to find the extra money to pay for a first-rate bridge that wouldn't spoil the swamp, he said. The Department of Transportation's Web site says the "bridge will completely span the entire wetland area of the Sparkleberry Swamp and will not result in the filling of any wetlands within the swamp."

About three acres of wetlands outside the main swamp area will be purchased to facilitate construction.

For Clyburn, the connector is as good as a done deal.

"The only way I don't build this bridge is (if) the courts stop me," he said.

This project matters to Clyburn because it's about creating real wealth in a poor black community.

"It's not just about jobs for them. It's about passing on wealth to their children and grandchildren," he said.
THE JOB CONNECTION
For the Santee-Lynches Regional Council of Governments, the bridge is about jobs.

And not just jobs, but the economy of the 21st century.

"The development pattern of the '80s and '90s is not going to be the development pattern we're going to experience in the future," said Jim Darby, the executive director of the COG.

The bridge will be a complementary asset to I-95, he said, to draw new businesses and industries here.

The most important assets for a new-century economy are transportation infrastructure, waste water and water infrastructure and, "above all else," the skill level of the labor force, he said.

Draw a 50-mile radius around any given location, he said, and that's where an industry can expect to draw its workers from. But without a bridge, some workers simply aren't available to industry.

"He who has the best workforce available" — meaning a workforce that can be drawn from a 360-degree radius — "are going to be the big winners in this new economy," Darby said.

The bridge would connect the economies of Sumter, Clarendon, Calhoun and Orangeburg, he said.

"There's going to be continual interchange between those workforces," Darby said.

Some have criticized DOT's studies, saying DOT looked at the Sumter-Orangeburg connection in isolation, without considering the ties between Sumter and Florence, Sumter and Columbia, or Orangeburg and Columbia. Each of those cities is about an hour's drive from each other.

But Darby said the plan is bigger than any single county in the region, and bigger even than the bridge. The COG understands what's happening as the economy transitions to the 21st century, but many people's perceptions are filtered through their understanding of the historical economy, he said.

"There's just no question about the trends and what's going on and what the future is," he said.

The 1996 Fluor Daniel study suggested that Sumter, Lee and Clarendon form a regional economic alliance and that Calhoun and Orangeburg form a separate economic alliance, but in the years since then the five counties joined the Central SC Alliance, a group of Midlands counties and cities that work together to attract business and industry to the region.

Although one of the theories supporting the connector says the bridge will help attract industry to the region, the alliance did not respond to repeated phone calls asking for input on how the bridge might improve the region's portfolio of assets.

The Sumter Development Board doesn't oppose the bridge, but neither does it think it's necessary.

"We do not have as a priority issue on our strategic plan ... that connector identified as a critical priority item," said Jim Kepner, the interim president of the board.

The No. 1 issue for the board, Kepner said, is workforce development.

He doesn't think Sumter needs to create a larger circle from which to draw workers, as it already draws workers from Richland, Kershaw, Lee and Clarendon counties.

"It's not hurting us substantially ... because we have a substantial labor force to draw from those other four counties," he said.

The DOT study focused on connectivity — moving jobs, health care and educational opportunities closer together by building the bridge.

However, it cautions that "the level of development would not be anticipated to be similar to that found in the vicinity of the I-95 bridge crossing to the south."

"Increased access to recreational opportunities may provide eco-tourism and recreation oriented development potential within the region," the report continues.

Hope Derrick, Clyburn's spokeswoman, said much of the development wouldn't necessarily occur lakeside, especially since much of the property is public land or controlled by Santee Cooper electric cooperative, but would occur farther inland, in the open areas between the small communities that dot the map of Calhoun and Orangeburg counties.

Clyburn also said he's interested in linking the communities separated by the lake, though time savings aren't his primary concern.

Some residents near Lone Star think the time savings would be an improvement. Maggie Poindexter, 58, has lived in the area all her life. When she became an adult, she moved into a home next door to her mother's.

Even though she works in Columbia, she's never considered moving. She likes living in the country. But she thinks the bridge could help preachers who pastor churches in both Sumter and Orangeburg and others who have to make the trip, she said.

"It will make people travel faster, and that'll be a plus," she said.

Andre McFadden, 23, also likes the country life but thinks the bridge would help bring in some business. Right now he has to drive eight miles to Elloree just to get gas — and he better get there before the station closes.