COLUMBIA — South Carolina is buying a Revolutionary War hideout, preserving parts of a pristine barrier island and upgrading aging stormwater systems to prevent future flooding.
Since 2021, at the urging of Governor Henry McMaster, lawmakers have set aside $274 million in a reserve fund to reduce the impact of flooding in the event of natural disasters and to jumpstart the rebuilding process after a major storm.
The first $30 million will remain untouched until needed in the wake of a presidentially declared disaster. Depending on the extent of the damage, these reserves could potentially be tapped in response to Tropical Storm Debby. (Reports are still being collected.)
In addition, only the $30 million that lawmakers added to the fund in this year’s state budget is unobligated.
The state has used the lion’s share of the previously allocated land to buy up and preserve thousands of acres of wetlands around the Palmetto State “to allow floodplains to do what they’re supposed to do,” said Eric Fosmire, chief of staff of the state’s Office of Resilience.
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Untouched places
That includes parts of Waites Island in Horry County. It’s “one of the last pristine barrier islands in South Carolina” that isn’t yet protected, with a landscape that ranges from high bluffs to marshlands, Fosmire said.
The state has pooled its resources with national nonprofit conservation organizations. These nonprofits then apply for grants that the state government is not entitled to, thus helping to reduce costs.
So far, the state has spent $23 million from the reserve fund to buy 480 acres on Waites Island in partnership with the Open Space Institute. Another $8 million purchase of 118 acres is in negotiations, according to Fosmire and documents submitted to a legislative oversight committee.
Coastal Carolina University’s Coastal Educational Foundation already owns more than 1,100 acres on the south end of Waties Island, which students use for research. The foundation received the land as a gift in 1995 from the same family, the descendants of Anne Tilghman Boyce, who are selling the rest of their land to preserve it in perpetuity.
The undeveloped island stands in stark contrast to the high-rise condos, beachfront restaurants and boardwalk of nearby Myrtle Beach.
The Waites Island center remains privately owned, according to Horry County’s online property records, and is owned by the Richmond-based Riverstone Group, which operates several golf resorts all along the East Coast, including on Kiawah Island in Charleston County.
“What we really want to make clear to people from a resilience perspective is that this is not about stunting growth or development,” Fosmire said.
“It’s all about being smart about development,” he continued. “And when you’re doing your planning, maybe don’t build a big supermarket on the most absorbent land in the county. Maybe look for another area, another place where it can be built for the benefit of everyone.”
In the Upstate, the state contributed $2 million from the reserve fund and funds from the state Conservation Bank and, in partnership with the Naturaland Trust and the Pickens County government, purchased more than 1,000 acres along the South Saluda River near Table Rock State Park.
“The conservation community has had its eye on this property for many years. It is the largest private and unprotected property in Pickens County,” said Naturaland Trust.
The trust says the landowner has been put under enormous pressure by developers and real estate agents to sell the property. Instead, the property is to be preserved.
When asked why money intended for flood mitigation is being used to buy land in areas not affected by the catastrophic flooding from the hurricane that led to the agency’s creation in 2020, Resilience spokeswoman Hope Warren said Upstate is “more vulnerable to flash flooding.”
“Although the Lowcountry, Pee Dee and Midlands may be the first areas that come to mind, flood risks and impacts are not limited to those areas of the state. Flood risk in the Upstate, for example, just looks different,” she wrote in an email to the SC Daily Gazette.
New parks
Just outside of Spartanburg, the Office of Resilience has contributed $20 million to purchase about 950 acres known as Tyger Oaks. The land, once slated for development, will become a Spartanburg County park.
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The office has also been involved in the expansion of the new Black River State Park in Georgetown County. Fosmire said the office donated $700,000 to purchase a piece of land near the town of Andrews, which could mean a boost for ecotourism in the town of about 3,600 residents.
In the Lowcountry, the state Office of Resilience and Conservation Bank helped Berkeley County purchase North Island from the state Port Authority for a park, with each group contributing about $1 million.
And in the Charlotte suburbs of Lancaster County, the state is investing $3.8 million to buy 600 acres of land along the Catawba River that is part of the Catawba Nation’s ancestral lands, with $2 million coming from the Office of Resilience. The state is partnering with the Open Space Institute and the only federally recognized Native American tribe in South Carolina on the purchase.
According to Open Lands, developers in the rapidly growing region had eyed the site for development with 1,000 homes.
“Our family has owned the property for over 100 years. Our father, William Oliver Nisbet, believed in family, community and community involvement,” owner Caroline Nisbet Hewett said in a statement. “We are proud and truly honored to be able to continue Oliver Nisbet’s legacy by preserving this property for the use and enjoyment of generations to come.”
The property also contains an active vein of Catawba clay, which is considered sacred by the tribe.
The Catawba have been making pottery for more than 6,000 years and sold pottery during the Great Depression to help the Catawba Indians survive. According to Open Lands, the tribe will continue to have access to the clay pit after the state park service takes control of the land.
Protecting the Swamp Fox’s Hideout
Most recently, the state Office of Resilience participated in its largest project yet – 7,600 acres in Florence County, including the Revolutionary War hideout of Francis Marion, which earned him the nickname Swamp Fox.
“The British couldn’t find it because it was swampy and wet most of the year,” Fosmire said.
Previously, Florence County had one of the lowest conservation rates of any county in the state at 1.8%.
“This project alone will nearly double the amount of permanently protected land in our community,” Florence County Administrator Kevin Yokim said in a statement.
The state Department of Natural Resources will oversee the property, and students from Francis Marion University will conduct archaeological, historical and forestry research on site.
The state Office of Resilience received preliminary approval from a legislative oversight committee on Tuesday to contribute about $19 million toward the purchase.
What happens next?
Fosmire said the Office of Resilience is still working on several other large conservation land purchases that it hopes to complete by the end of 2024.
In the end, $200 million will have been distributed for these transactions from the reserve fund managed by the office.
“You really get a lot for your money in wetland conservation,” Fosmire said, especially because the state has been able to raise private and government funds in addition to its own.
In addition to state funding, the Office of Resilience is part of a multi-state partnership for which a federal pollution prevention grant has been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
According to spokeswoman Hope Warren, the office will receive a share of $50 million to continue its land-buying efforts.
In addition, approximately $44 million has been spent or is planned to improve stormwater disposal throughout the state.
“The need is so great across the state,” Fosmire said. “There are literally billions of dollars in stormwater mitigation efforts that can be done.”
The Resilience Office oversaw $262 million worth of stormwater projects in the state funded by federal disaster and COVID-19 relief funds, but applications were received at the time for $400 million worth of work.
The agency is also looking to the future and trying to improve the amount of data that cities and counties use to determine how to size stormwater pipes to accommodate new construction projects.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data currently used are from 2008 and do not take into account the series of severe storms that have hit South Carolina since 2015: hurricanes Joaquin, Matthew and Florence, and tropical storms Irma and Debby.
These and other storms bring more rain in shorter periods of time, Fosmire said. The Office of Resilience contributed $185,000 to speed up the data update process. Additional funding came from the state’s transportation and natural resources agencies.
The state expects to receive an interim update within the next two years, rather than in five or six years, Fosmire said.
