Stop building new roads until we know the threat to the environment

After seeing all the damage from the recent hurricane, it’s time for South Carolina to abandon projects such as Interstate 73. There’s been a lot of fallen trees and a lot of flooding.

What makes the state believe that flooding of urban areas is not being caused by the filling of wetlands, the heightening of new roads, and putting more concrete pilings in drainage basin areas?

Before building any more roads, an environmental impact study should include what hindrances there will be to water drainage after all those waterways are filled with dirt, concrete piers and steel rebar.

Water from higher ground has to go somewhere and eventually makes its way to the Atlantic Ocean or is absorbed. Otherwise, it will back up like it did after the hurricane, all the way over S.C. 9 and several other major thoroughfares.

And thinking about the Atlantic Ocean. There’s been some talk about the ocean rising. Has someone gone out in the middle and measured the depth from top to bottom?

Anyone considered that all the concrete slabs on the perimeter lands are pressuring the ocean to rise? Like throwing boulders on wet sand. Well, sure, the water rises from displacement.

And the chemicals the military continues to spray aren’t helping matters (before and during the storm) because the spray not only fuels the storm’s tenacity but blocks the sun’s rays from drying up the water on the ground, stifling crop and forestry production to absorb water, and makes everyone sick.

Something needs to change, and if the state Department of Health and Environmental Control isn’t going to help by protesting air pollution, seismic testing, I-73, and unneeded road construction, then we need a local environmental protection group to form and mandate impact studies before anymore damage to the land, sea, air and local waterways occurs. This doesn’t even mention the light, electrical, and EMF pollution traveling the land.

It’s no wonder the turtles and fish find somewhere else to lay eggs and feed. The Grand Strand looks like a meteor shower parked on the beach to ward off predators.

Citizens, wildlife, and even the land, are suffering.

I might add that three roads are still closed within three miles of my house in Loris, and that makes me wonder where the money is to fix them. What’s happened to the politics of helping?

This story was originally published December 10, 2016 at 10:15 AM with the headline "Stop building new roads until we know the threat to the environment."