Dozens protest environmental appeal regarding International Drive

Horry County officials and environmentalists are again trying to reach a compromise to get International Drive built while more than two dozen protestors demonstrated outside the Coastal Conservation League’s office Wednesday to try and persuade the group to ease up on fighting the road’s completion.

After a heated meeting last week in which Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus asked the conservation groups to leave, he has now reached out to them via letter just days before the conservation groups’ deadline to appeal the Department of Health and Environmental Control board’s decision not to review its staff recommendation of whether to include bear tunnels or fencing along the 5.6-mile proposed stretch of road.

If the Coastal Conservation League and the South Carolina Wildlife Federation do not appeal to an administrative law judge by Monday, the road paving goes on as planned. If it does appeal, the delay can continue longer in the court system.

“We sent something that we feel is a good compromise,” Lazarus said Wednesday without getting into details of the letter. “It utilizes several of their requests and I don’t want to release it right now, because I want to see what they come back with.”

On Wednesday morning, more than 25 people who live in the area of International Drive protested in front of Coastal Conservation League’s Georgetown office with chants of “What do we want? International Drive. When do we want it? Now.”

Felicia Soto, a resident along S.C. 90 who has been among the community leaders pushing for the project, said she hopes the county and conservationists can come to an agreement to get the road built.

“Our council has come back to them, despite the demands that they made... they still want them to come back,” Soto said. “So hopefully they will come back to the table and they will negotiate with us.”

Soto helped secure nearly 1,000 online and in-print signatures to encourage the road to be completed.

Echoes of the protestors’ chants could be heard from the second-floor office of Nancy Cave, north coast director for the Coastal Conservation League. Cave worked to secure nearly 800 electronic signatures in one day to fight for the league’s cause.

She said in the 15 years of being with the league, no group has protested outside her office.

“We have reviewed that letter and are in the process of putting together that response,” Cave said of the county’s letter. “We will respond to it and we will see what happens with that response.”

Cave said the league has not decided whether it will file an appeal with the administrative law judge.

“We haven’t decided yet, and it will depend upon [the letter], and how they respond to our response will depend upon what we decide to do going forward,” Cave said.

For nine years, the state, Horry County officials and the majority of voters in a 2006 sales tax referendum have been waiting for the construction of International Drive, which is aimed at improving the flow of traffic from the Carolina Forest community to S.C. 90 and vice versa.

Authorities have said a major fire in 2009 thinned the black bear population through Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve, and by 2013, county and SC Department of Natural Resources officials agreed that crossings would not be needed. In that agreement, the county said it would expand the road from two lanes to four lanes and reduce traffic speed from 60 mph to 45 mph.

As the county was securing the final permits for the project earlier this summer, the Environmental Law Project filed a request with DHEC to conduct a final review conference, which basically asks its board to review the work of its staff. In this case, the law project wanted the board to make sure the tunnels should not be a requirement.

DHEC ruled earlier this month that the board will not review its staff’s recommendations, and now the law project has until Monday to request a contested case hearing before the Administrative Law Court.

Last week, Horry County officials met with environmentalists for the second time in August, and it resulted in Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus asking the group to leave the meeting for what he called a lack of willingness to compromise.

Cave said even if the appeal is filed, she anticipates being able to meet further with the county.

“There is no reason that we couldn’t have communications with the county and continue to talk about a compromise, and if we find a compromise, we can go back into the court and say we want the case dismissed,” Cave said.

Lazarus said the bear tunnel may still be an issue.

“The south side of International Drive is all private development,” Lazarus said. “We can’t just be putting wildlife crossings into private development and not knowing exactly how that private development is going to be developed at some point in time. So we have to find the appropriate areas where it could be close to a bay or an area that won’t be developed because of sensitivity or wildlife… The DNR’s determination of the number of bears has significantly dwindled over the last 10 years. There’s just not a significant concentration of them in that area anymore.

“I think what we sent them is very reasonable. It allows everybody to have a win, and we can move forward and they can move on to the next project.”

Bill Beidleman, co-organizer of the protest, said he hopes the two parties can reach a compromise.

“Hopefully they reach an agreement that everybody can live with, not only for our community and what International Drive means to us, but where also the conservationists can come on board and come to some agreement with Horry council,” Beidleman said.

Maxine Gatling of the Hillsboro community expressed a little more frustration with the delay, saying residents already have paid for the $16.5 million road through Horry County’s RIDE II program, which collected a sales tax to pay for road projects.

“We deserve International Drive,” Gatling said. “We paid for it and it’s been promised to us.

“It’s 10 miles less to get from [S.C.] 90 to Grand Strand [Medical Center] if International Drive was paved. As it is now, fire and rescue have to go 10 miles out of their way to get to Grand Strand hospital, and that could mean life or death. We deserve International Drive.”

Drew Rosafort of the Mill Creek subdivision said the area needs the quicker access International Drive would provide to places such as Grand Strand Medical Center.

“The bottom line is most of us in Horry County want this road. We want it very, very much. You’re talking to people from Georgetown, Charleston, Beaufort,” Rosafort said of the conservationists who live outside the area. “They don’t know what we’re going through there. They don’t care. They’re worrying about the bear and the woodpecker. I’m worried about the lives.”

This story was originally published August 26, 2015 at 2:05 PM with the headline "Dozens protest environmental appeal regarding International Drive."