COASTAL OBSERVER

Georgetown County will move forward with a wetlands protection ordinance that will prohibit new development closer than 50 feet to a wetland and prohibit filling wetlands without a permit.

The Planning Commission last week agreed to hold a public hearing on the measure in April, but declined to consider a list of options that would limit the scope of the ordinance.

Holly Richardson, the county planning director, met with groups representing environmental, business and landowner interests after the ordinance was introduced last fall. She also met with members of County Council, who told her they would also like to hold a workshop on the ordinance.

“We require a 15-foot setback from saltwater wetlands, and that’s all. So we’re taking a pretty big jump,” Richardson told the commission.

The initial proposal granted an exemption to the proposed buffer rules if the wetlands were a quarter acre or less. That was expanded to a half acre in a draft presented to the commission last week.

An exemption from the fill restriction was expanded from a 10th of an acre to a quarter of an acre.

The proposed buffers would not apply to developed lots or lots of record.

“This ordinance kicks in for new subdivisions of three lots or greater,” Richardson said.

There are also exemptions for forestry and agriculture that follow provisions in state law.

Richardson said she heard concerns about how the ordinance would apply to property that is part of an ongoing development. Projects that already have federal and state permits when the ordinance is adopted would be exempt.

“Our goal is not to add additional time or funds,” Richardson said, but she added that the county wants to protect its natural resources and changes in federal law and regulations make that a moving target.

Commission member Bill Hills said he thinks the proposal is going to cost county taxpayers, and he questioned whether the county has the expertise to deal with wetlands.

“I don’t think it’s going to be worth it to the taxpayers of Georgetown County to go beyond what the state and federal government regulates,” he said. “I don’t think it’s up to Georgetown County to say we’re going to do better.”

He agreed the current system isn’t perfect, but said local regulation wouldn’t be perfect either.

Commission member Amy Armstrong, who was appointed the week before, said more local governments are acting to protect wetlands outside the scope of the federal Clean Water Act, known as nonjurisdictional wetlands.

Armstrong is executive director of the S.C. Environmental Law Project and helped the county develop the wetlands ordinance since it was first proposed years ago during the update of the county’s comprehensive plan.

“Federal and state government are inadequate to regulate wetlands,” she said.

Recent court rulings have limited the federal role to “waters of the U.S.” that have a continuous surface connection to wetlands.

“It’s a moving target and it has been for decades,” Armstrong said. “It’s really what has led to local government doing exactly what Georgetown County is doing.”

Nearly half the area of the county is wetlands with permanent freshwater wetlands and salt marshes together accounting for about a quarter. Armstrong noted that a survey taken during the comprehensive planning process found 96 percent of respondents valued the county’s natural resources.

Many of the wetlands are nonjurisdictional. “These are our lifeblood,” Armstrong said, providing not only wildlife habitat but protection for drinking water and a defense against flooding.

Federal and state regulators actually rely on other agencies for the science that goes into their decisions, she said. 

“That’s a deficiency in our whole system,” Armstrong said. “They don’t have it under control.”

She called the exemptions to the wetlands protections “significant,” but said they would still help control future development.

“They’re coming to the county making money. I think they should bear some of the cost,” she said.

Madison Cooper of the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors asked if the commission members had thought about other suggested rollbacks to the rules.

None of them said they had.