Horry environmental group seeks ‘commonsense’ rules to protect wetlands, limit flooding
An influential local environmental advocacy group has set a goal this year to protect Horry County’s wetlands.
April O’Leary, who heads the Horry County Rising organization, said this week that the group’s campaign to better protect wetlands would seek county-level legislation to ensure that new building is done further away from existing wetlands. She launched the campaign by distributing proposed regulations to county leaders and gave a short speech about the effort Tuesday evening.
“Protecting wetlands is one of the most commonsense, fiscally responsible actions that you can take as an elected official to protect us from flooding,” she told county council members.
The new campaign from Horry County Rising comes on the heels of the group’s success last year in advocating for stricter building standards to prevent flooding. Using the results of a study that showed Hurricane Florence’s high-water marks around the county, the group pushed for building standards that would require developers to build above a certain height if they are within the Florence flood zones.
The ordinance also required buildings within the Florence flood zones to reconstruct several feet higher if they’re significantly damaged by a storm.
Horry County Council enacted the new flooding-prevention measures in June.
O’Leary told county leaders she wants to build off of that success.
“The ask is really to get council to put (legislation) through committee for due process and debate,” O’Leary told The Sun News. “We’re asking council to exceed federal and state regulations.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control already regulate wetlands, but the law allows local governments to impose stricter standards.
Why protections are needed
O’Leary and Horry County Rising are pushing for new regulations that would keep buildings at least 50 feet away from wetlands and prevent developers from filling in wetlands.
O’Leary noted Tuesday that many of the county’s wetlands have already been destroyed due to the rapid development the area has seen. In the past 25 years, developers have built on nearly 60% of the county’s available land, she said, causing the county to lose 20% of its wetlands in the process.
Wetlands, which are defined as natural areas that hold water for part of a year, are important to preventing flooding, environmental advocates say. Because the areas can absorb large quantities of stormwater, they can serve as holding tanks in flat and coastal areas like Horry County that struggle to drain water into the ocean.
The significant flooding Horry County experiences is typically caused by the Waccamaw River or the Intracoastal Waterway overflowing because water can’t drain into the Winyah Bay quickly enough.
O’Leary and other advocates say preserving wetlands can reduce the damage caused by that type of flooding because they give stormwater a place to go.
What the proposed regulations would do
Horry County Rising’s proposed regulations would create new buffer zones for wetlands that ultimately drain water into larger bodies.
Small developments that have a water-drainage area of 99 acres or less could be built as close as 50 feet to wetlands. Large developers that have water-drainage areas greater than 500 acres would have to be built 150 feet away from wetlands. Mid-sized developments would fall between those two standards.
Horry County Rising proposes additional regulations for “isolated wetlands” — which the group defines as those larger than 10,000 square feet that don’t drain into larger bodies of water.
Those would see low-density housing, like a single-family home, built no closer than 25 feet away from the wetlands. High-density housing, like apartments, could be built no closer than 50 feet away from wetlands. High-density commercial developments, like a shopping center, would have to be 75 feet away, and industrial operations would have to be 100 feet away.
The group also proposes banning developers from filling in wetlands, and would require builders to tell county leaders what steps they took to reduce the impact to nearby wetlands.
Citing the county’s rapid growth— 82,000 new residents between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census — O’Leary said stricter local regulations are needed.
She told council members Tuesday that preserving the county’s wetlands can ultimately save the county money and help boost the local economy.
“Without the preservation of our local flood storage, and natural wetlands, catastrophic flooding will continue to worsen,” she said. “I know many of you don’t want to see that happen.”
