Group aims to swamp hearing
A local environmental advocacy group is asking its members to flood a Charleston County Council public hearing tonight on a proposed construction and debris landfill they say is too close to the pristine ACE Basin.
Members of the Coastal Conservation League claim the site under discussion, which would take in work-site debris and other types of large items, is too close to the basin's nature areas and also to the Edisto River in the southern part of the county. The basin is where three rivers -- the Ashepoo, the Combahee and the Edisto -- come together.
"This is your last chance to voice your concerns and make a difference," read an e-mail authored by Kate Parks, project manager for the Coastal Conservation League.
Similar blast e-mails have gone out ahead of earlier meetings, Parks said Monday. But the concern is elevated, she said, because this will be the final hearing before a council planning and public works committee considers zoning changes Thursday.
Mount Pleasant businessman Tre Sheppard is trying to get the site approved as a fill area, saying it is part of a wider and environmentally safe effort of debris removal.
Under his plan, usable disposed materials would be taken out at a North Charleston recycling facility, while the rest would go to the landfill.
Some council members have said they are open to Sheppard's proposal. He wants to recycle about 60 percent of the construction waste taken in and would agree to accept debris from across the county if the area is hit by a hurricane.
But some residents in the rural Adams Run community said they are worried about what could happen to their well water and any ground contamination.
By approving a rezoning and a change to the county's long-term land-use plan, council members would allow an estimated 313-acre site to operate off U.S. Highway 17 South and Parkers Ferry Road, just miles from the Edisto River. The group said the area is too close to critical wetlands.
Wilbur Jones, who owns property in the area and opposes the landfill, said allowing the site to operate would be counter to the concentration of green space and conservation easements already in the area. "It's not a bad idea," he said. "It's just the wrong place for it."
