International Drive Dispute pits bears against future growth near Myrtle Beach

The battle to build International Drive heads to a courtroom in Columbia on Tuesday where arguments are expected to focus on the need for costly bear tunnels.

However, supporters and opponents of the project admit that the underlying conflict centers on future development that is predicted to spread alongside the highway’s path once it’s completed.

The 5-mile dirt road that winds through the Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve links the rapidly growing Carolina Forest and its 30,000 residents to the country lanes of S.C. Highway 90. Supporters of a new road say it would allow for a speedy route out of the Grand Strand area.

Horry County officials were blocked from building the new highway last summer after environmental groups contested the elimination of three proposed bear tunnels along the route.

Construction is estimated to cost $16.5 million, while bear tunnels would add another $3 million to the price tag.

“If it weren’t for the delays, we would have been driving on International Drive by the end of this year,” said Lisa Bourcier, spokeswoman for Horry County.

International Drive supporters living in Carolina Forest and along S.C. Highway 90 are critical of the legal roadblock in the road’s path, and say that environmentalists are not as concerned about bears, as they are about stopping future development.

Growth is the primary reason the road is needed, road supporters say. Residents along S.C. Highway 90 are frustrated with traffic jams leading into Myrtle Beach, especially during emergency trips to the hospital.

Some Carolina Forest residents say the road is needed as an evacuation route during natural disasters.

“There are too many people in too small of an area with limited access roads in and out, and this area will continue to grow,” said Carole vanSickler, president of the Carolina Forest Civic Association.

After the record rainfall that flooded parts of Horry County in October, thousands of residents along S.C. Highway 90 were trapped by washed out roads in both directions.

“We were stuck for two days. Had International Drive been built, we would have had access to get out of here,” said Liz Russell, a member of a citizens group formed to support road construction.

A devastating wildfire that swept through the proposed area for the road is also pivotal to the debate.

“If International Drive was there in 2009, firefighters would have had much better access to fight that fire and maybe they wouldn’t have lost 70 or 80 homes,” said Bill Beidleman, a member of the citizens group.

Ironically, state and county officials say it was that fire that decimated the bear population, and is the reason they eliminated wildlife tunnels that were originally proposed in 2010.

Road plans were redesigned in 2013, eliminating the tunnels and expand the road from two to four lanes. When 1ten curb cuts were added to the design signaling the approach of new development, the debate over growth was ignited.

BATTLE FOR DEVELOPMENT

When the citizens’ group met with environmentalists last summer to mediate objections to the county’s plan over the location of mitigation property and bear tunnels, it was the number of curb cuts that emerged as a key issue.

“They said they only wanted two curb cuts, and they actually said it’s because they don’t want to see that area developed,” Beidleman said.

Stopping future development was also the reason environmentalists wanted mitigation property alongside the preserve area, according to the citizens group.

“That’s exactly what it came down too,” Russell said. “They wanted to have control over future development.”

Nancy Cave, north coast director of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, the group spearheading the legal challenge, concedes that blocking development is a central goal.

“Roads usually tend to result in development,” Cave said.

“If International Drive is built, more and more development comes into that area and S.C. 90 is further developed,” Cave said. “Then Lewis Ocean Bay is going to die. It’s going to lose its biodiversity and unique plants and animals, and this very special area, because of human activity, will no longer be.”

Cave says part of their argument to the court will be that future development was not taken into consideration when the permit was approved, but that future growth was specifically planed in the road design.

“The design of the road is to have 10 curb cuts, if the curb cuts are there, there has to be a reason they think the property is going to be used, and likely it will be used for development,” Cave said.

“That impact was not thoroughly described, explained or acknowledged in the permit application,” Cave said.

Horry County Councilman Johnny Vaught admits that growth will follow the new road’s path, and says wildlife tunnels encouraging bears to cross into future residential and commercial areas does not make sense.

Instead, a fence should be constructed along the preserve side of the road to prevent bears and other wildlife from crossing the road and endangering the animals and motorists, Vaught said.

“On the south side of International Drive it’s all privately owned, it will be developed at some point in time. We cannot stop development, that is going to happen out there,” Vaught said.

“Why encourage bears to cross over from a wildlife preserve? You want the fence there to prevent that,” Vaught said.

More than 80 bears were killed on roads bordering the Lewis Ocean Bay preserve between 2007 and 2014.

That’s according to South Carolina Department of Natural Resources documents obtained by The Sun News using the Freedom of Information Act.

However, genetic testing from thousands of hair samples collected in the preserve shows the number of bears did decline after the 2009 fire.

While 29 bears were identified as having traversed or inhabited the preserve in 2008, tests conducted in 2014 showed only 10 bears had moved in or through the 9,000-acre area.

The county stated in the pre-hearing statement with the court that the bears resettled in Marion and Georgetown Counties as well as North Carolina after the fire.

“The assessment was that the bears were not moving back to the preserve and International Drive areas,” Horry County said in the court document.

Felicia Soto, a member of the citizens group, said it does not make sense to spend $300,000 per bear for three tunnels, which also includes the cost of raising the road over the crossings.

“I don’t see it anymore as having anything to do with bears,” Soto said of the environmentalist objections to the road construction.

“They don’t even live here, so I don’t know what they really care. As far as it being about bears, was it ever about bears? I have to question that,” Soto said.

VanSickler agreed: “They’re fighting for a principle but they’re not living here to deal with that principle.”

TAKING THE CASE TO COURT

Administrative Law Court Chief Judge Ralph Anderson has scheduled three days of hearings, beginning Tuesday, on the appeal filed by the conservation league and South Carolina Wildlife Federation of the permit issued by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control allowing construction to move forward.

Stan Barnett, attorney for Horry County Public Works, declined to elaborate on the case they will present to the judge except to drive home their essential point.

“I’m going to tell them the road should be built,” Barnett said.

It’s been nearly a decade since the paving of International Drive was first approved by Horry County residents through a Nov. 7, 2006 referendum to impose a one-cent sales tax to pay for this and other road projects.

International Drive construction was scheduled to begin in 2012 with a 2013 completion date, but this and other road projects was delayed for two years when the environmentalists objected to the permitting process for work on S.C. Highways 707 and 31.

The permitting process for International Drive was nearly completed last summer, but the environmentalists filed a court protest in August to contest one of the permits.

When the court proceedings begin, It will be up to the environmental groups to prove the permitting process was not correctly followed.

It’s expected the court will take at least a month to render its decision.

International Drive supporters are confident about the merits of their case and are hoping this week’s hearings will be the deciding factor to move the project forward.

“It’s long overdue,” Soto said.

However, this week’s hearings are likely to mark the beginning of a long road of litigation.

If the environmental groups lose, they can appeal the judge’s decision all the way to the state Supreme Court.

This story was originally published February 14, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "International Drive Dispute pits bears against future growth near Myrtle Beach."