Plant deal to highlight conservation

Not long after Volvo announced that it planned to fill nearly 200 acres of wetlands for a new Lowcountry automobile plant, conservation groups and natural resource agencies actually praised the international carmaker’s proposal for South Carolina.

That might sound strange, but Volvo was able to ease concerns by negotiating with potential detractors and ultimately offering to offset the wetlands loss with much-coveted land. The company has pledged to protect some 2,500 acres of undeveloped property in the area of Four Holes Swamp and the Francis Beidler Forest, an internationally known nature preserve between Columbia and Charleston.

Volvo’s efforts are part of a trend emerging in South Carolina in which big companies are negotiating with conservationists and government agencies to smooth out disagreements before the disputes turn into lengthy court battles.

Companies such as Volvo, Boeing and Romarco Minerals in the past two years have agreed to protect vast chunks of undeveloped land after talking out the issues with groups and regulatory agencies that could slow down the opening of their businesses.

And, with Volvo and Boeing, the environmentalists were involved early – before the companies and state of South Carolina announced their plans to the public.

The state Ports Authority also has gotten involved, cutting a deal with conservation groups in January to protect potentially thousands of acres in the Cooper River Watershed near Charleston. Environmental groups, for their part, agreed not to challenge the port’s harbor-deepening project. The agreement went beyond federal requirements to offset the environmental impacts.

Overall, the environmental groups and companies have reached deals to save significant tracts of open land in South Carolina.

Company executives, regulators and conservationists “are starting to get more on the same page now,” said Bob Perry, who examines environmental permit requests for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. “The private sector is making (conservation) part of its business model.”

Jim Nichols, a spokesman for Volvo, said his company’s recent efforts in South Carolina paid off for the environment and for the company. Volvo, founded in Sweden, has a commitment to environmental protection, he said.

“It all comes down to collaboration and engagement,” he said. “We are happy that the groups were able to come together and review our plans – and be able to provide their input.”

Since 2014, companies have agreed to protect at least 11,300 acres to offset wetlands losses from the Volvo plant, the expansion of Boeing’s aircraft plant in North Charleston and a new gold mine in Lancaster County. Land to be protected includes Cook’s Mountain southeast of Columbia, property near the Francis Marion National Forest outside of Charleston and the Walnut Branch area near the Beidler Forest, a Dorchester County preserve run by the Audubon Society.

Not everyone has been happy with efforts to negotiate preservation accords. Development interests in Horry County claim that environmental groups are threatening to delay construction projects – including new public roads – in exchange for protecting more land than necessary.

The Legislative Audit Council also recently criticized the state Department of Commerce for allowing the expenditure of $4.6 million more than necessary to offset wetlands losses related to Boeing’s initial plant site a decade ago.

Conservationists and government agencies – including the state Department of Commerce – defended the new practice, saying the idea was to save important natural areas in exchange for allowing Boeing’s initial plant in South Carolina to move ahead with fewer permitting delays.

With Volvo, the Commerce Department has been reluctant to say how much is being spent to protect land at taxpayers’ expense, since the state is offering the company millions of dollars in incentives. Conservationists said they understood the amount to be about $12 million, which Bobby Hitt, the state’s commerce director, said was close. All of the property hasn’t been bought. The figure could change, he said.

At the same time, every company seeking to build or expand in South Carolina can’t mollify all environmental concerns and limit time-consuming permit fights simply by trying to negotiate deals with environmental groups.

Romarco Minerals, a Canadian company, struck a deal with major environmental groups in South Carolina to protect extra land in exchange for their agreement not to challenge permits the corporation needed for a gold mine. The company’s deal occurred after its initial protection plan was considered inadequate by some federal agencies.

Following the agreement by conservationists not to sue, one group that did not sign the accord challenged a mining permit. The Sierra Club’s suit delayed work but prompted Romarco to set aside an extra $5 million in cash for a site cleanup.

Even if a company offers a generous package of land to offset environmental impacts, some property is so important ecologically that it’s hard to avoid disputes with regulators and environmentalists, said Steve Gilbert, a retired biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In the case of Volvo, Gilbert said the state Department of Commerce and Volvo were smart to settle on a site in Berkeley County that did not contain pristine, undisturbed wetlands. Unlike a pristine hardwood swamp, the wetlands the company needs to fill have been substantially degraded by growing pine trees on a timber plantation through the years.

“If those wetlands at Volvo were in their original condition, this would have been a lot harder site for both the environmental community and the agencies to buy off on,” Gilbert said.

The property also isn’t known to contain an endangered species that, despite the most earnest efforts to negotiate, could have slowed the project. A site in Georgia that was competing with Volvo contained habitat for a rare tortoise.

Hitt said the key conservation issue with Volvo was to include various interest groups and agencies early in the process.

While he never told anyone the company interested in South Carolina was Volvo, he said his agency made a point to meet individually with different groups to discuss how to offset the wetlands impacts of a large economic development project in Berkeley County. Commerce then held a meeting with all of the groups April 15 at the Santee Cooper power company’s conference center in Berkeley County.

Among those attending were representatives of the S.C. Coastal Conservation League, the Southern Environmental Law Center, several land trusts and federal and state agencies. Many at the meeting offered ideas on what property to protect.

“I told them how important we thought it was to have their input on this,” Hitt said. “Part of the goal was on behalf of the client to bring about a process in which there would be harmony and support.”

This story was originally published May 12, 2015 at 10:48 PM with the headline "Plant deal to highlight conservation."