Bill to undo dredging permit headed to Haley

COLUMBIA -- A measure suspending the authority of South Carolina’s environmental agency to make dredging decisions received final approval Wednesday, sending it to the governor’s desk.

The joint resolution is designed to help lawmakers’ efforts to undo a water quality permit granted by the Department of Health and Environment Control, which allows Georgia to expand the Savannah port.

The latest unanimous vote puts Gov. Nikki Haley in the odd position of deciding whether to sign, veto or allow it to become law without her signature. The Republican governor has drawn fire for asking her board chairman to hear Georgia’s appeal.

In a rare show of unanimity last week, House Republicans and Democrats took turns decrying the decision as disastrous to the state’s economy and environment. The House approved it 111-0.

The Senate followed this week with back-to-back votes Tuesday and Wednesday of 37-0, though without discussion.

Last week, Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey called the vote “an unfortunate over-step of the Legislature’s authority.” He did not immediately return a request for comment on the governor’s plans.

A joint resolution has the same force as law, and must go through the same approval process. But it is a temporary measure that dies when the issue’s over.

It would suspend DHEC’s ability to make dredging decisions, as of 2007. That’s when legislators created the Savannah River Maritime Commission and gave it authority to represent South Carolina on navigability issues in the river shared with Georgia.

Neither it nor the state’s natural resources agency was consulted before DHEC awarded the permit in November, two months after agency staff denied it, citing unacceptable harm to the environment.

DHEC’s board could have let the staff’s decision stand.

The reversal came after Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal flew to Columbia to meet with Haley, and she – responding to what she called a perfectly reasonable request – asked DHEC’s board to hear Georgia’s appeal. Minutes before the hearing started, staff reached an agreement with Georgia and the Army Corps of Engineers, which the board, composed entirely of members she appointed, approved unanimously with no debate.

The maritime commission has joined an appeal by the Southern Environmental Law Center, arguing the permit was improperly granted. It contends the dredging will deplete dissolved oxygen in the already impaired river, destroy habitat of endangered fish and destroy hundreds of acres of fragile freshwater marsh.

While the joint resolution approved by the House won’t end the lawsuit, still in its early discovery stages, it should help arguments in court that the commission has permitting authority, said Mark Plowden, spokesman for Attorney General Alan Wilson, who is representing the commission.

A DHEC spokesman has said the agency couldn’t comment due to pending litigation.