UPDATE: Administrative clerk on International Drive hearing: ‘Probably... after the first of the year’

An appeal that is holding up construction of International Drive likely won’t be heard until next year, though officials continue to negotiate aiming to reach a compromise and get the project going.

The Clerk of the Administrative Law Court said the anticipated hearing on whether the state will re-consider plans to include bear tunnels and fencing around the planned International Drive construction likely won’t be heard until 2016.

Jana Shealy, clerk of the S.C. Administrative Law Court, said that the case filed by the Southern Environmental Law Project was being processed Wednesday and an Administrative Law judge should be assigned this week. That judge, who will be assigned by Chief Administrative Law Judge Ralph Anderson, will be responsible for asking both the law project and Horry County for pre-hearing statements.

“It probably would be after the first of the year before there would be a hearing on this,” Shealy said.

Meanwhile, residents who want the road built now have scheduled a meeting with environmentalists for mid-September in the hopes of reaching a compromise.

County officials also continue their negotiations with environmentalists.

“We’re not going to just sit back and wait for this suit to happen,” Horry County Councilman Johnny Vaught said. “We’re going to continue to work hard to make it happen sooner, if there’s any way. We’re still open to them. They’ve got to be realistic about this deal.”

Nancy Cave, north coast director for the Coastal Conservation League, said the later hearing date buys more time to negotiate with the county.

“Our position hasn’t changed,” Cave said. “It certainly gives us time to continue discussions with the county to see if there’s a compromise.”

The law project filed the contested case hearing Friday on behalf of the Coastal Conservation League and the Wildlife Federation challenging the Department of Health and Environmental Control’s authorization to fill or eliminate more than 24 acres of wetlands in the planned project. Though the focus of the law project’s most recent complaints have been about their request for bear tunnels, environmentalists said the wetlands issue has always been part of the discussion

Residents in the Carolina Forest and S.C. 90 areas of Horry County have been wanting a 5.6-mile stretch of International Drive paved since well before the project was funded by a 1-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2006. The problem the project has run into is the road is near the Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve — a home to black bears.

Conservationists from the Coastal Conservation League and the Wildlife Federation have teamed up to try to get Horry County officials to stick to its original plan of constructing bear tunnels and fencing along the proposed road, a measure the state’s Department of Natural Resources said is no longer needed.

County and state officials have contended the bear population has thinned since the original studies, eliminating the need for crossings.

Vaught commended the community activists for getting involved and warned that the environmentalists’ fight could cost them in the pocketbook.

“They’ve never felt this kind of pressure before,” Vaught said. “It’s always been them doing all the picketing. I urge [the community] to just keep the pressure on them. Their money comes from the public, and if the public has a bad taste in their mouth, which they do right now for these people, their money is going to start to be cut off.”

This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 11:12 AM with the headline "UPDATE: Administrative clerk on International Drive hearing: ‘Probably... after the first of the year’."