By Bill Davis | Subtle, serene, and slow-moving since forever, the Edisto River may be in for big, turbulent change.
Earlier this month, a national watchdog listed the 250 miles of South Carolina blackwater river as the fifth most endangered river in the country, up from sixth last year.
The release of that ranking has churned rhetoric of how best to use and protect the Edisto River on its journey from the springs of Edgefield and Saluda counties to where it meets the ocean at Edisto Beach.
The two sides with the most to lose are the conservationists and the state’s small farms, which are represented in the fight by state Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers.
But they seem to have swapped tactics. American Rivers, the watchdog organization, continues to warn that policy is the best way to address the river’s challenges. Meanwhile, Weathers is arguing that science holds the answers.
Statehouse players like state Rep. James Smith (D-Columbia) have entered the fray and churned up the rhetoric, accusing Weathers of “selling out the state’s family-owned farms” in his attempt to woo western industrial farming to set up shop in South Carolina.
Blackwater back-story
At issue is the S.C. Surface Water Withdrawal, Permitting Use and Reporting Act, last ratified in 2010, and how it fails to deal with potential megafarms and the huge amount of water they need to grow crops.
A proposed potato farm along the South Fork of the river could have drawn literally one billion of gallons of water from the Edisto River annually. And because of shortcomings in the law, nothing could be done to stop it. But a compromise was struck between the Michigan-based farming company and locals, greatly reducing the amount of water it would take out of the river that feeds into the ACE Basin.
According to an official at the state Department of Natural Resources, very few water users have to file for permits to draw surface water from rivers in South Carolina. Only new industrial use and municipal drinking water withdrawals have to file permits, as older users have been grandfathered in under the 2010 law, according to DNR.
Farmers — or “agribusiness as conservationists sometimes refer to them” — don’t have to file for permits for irrigation water, even though very little of the water they take for irrigation actually returns to the river.
“Of course, they want no permitting; that’s the easiest for farmers,” said Bill Marshall, a scenic rivers manager for DNR and one of its experts on water usage.
Ironically nuclear plants, which are usually seen with more dread than a pea field, are required to clean, recycle and return most of the water it uses, said Marshall.
Conservationists, like Gerrit Jobsis with American Rivers, argue that unfettered drawdowns would be especially damaging to the Edisto during droughts and to those who depend on it for drinking water, fishing or recreation.
Further driving the importance of this debate is the looming drought crunch in California as its surface waters dwindle and the drought that hit Atlanta and parts of northeast Georgia in recent years that left popular lakes at record low levels.
Civility, please
Weathers, the agriculture commissioner, says he and the conservationists are really on the same side. He has asked both sides to be “civil” with each other while awaiting the results of a DNR study of the Edisto River.
“We have to wait for the facts,” he says.
Weathers, a farmer, said once the study was completed, it will guide lawmakers interested in addressing changes in state law, which he will implement.
But Jobsis, a former DNR official, said the study would not provide any recommendations or guidelines and isn’t quite the panacea Weathers seems to be describing it as.
Jobsis said he also had problems with some of the “science” that Weathers is relying on publicly. Several times in public and in interviews, including one with Statehouse Report, Weathers claimed that agribusiness draws down just 3 percent of the state’s available surface water annually, a level he said is well below the state’s “safe yield” in terms of water usage.
“[Hooey],” says Smith, but in different terms, citing an existing DNR report that quashes Weathers’ 3-percent claim. Smith said Weathers was corrected at a recent public forum. Statehouse Report was unable to get the DNR report cited by Smith.
“I don’t know every hydrologist,” said Weathers, staying the course. “I’m a farmer.”
Deep waters run still
Weathers said his biggest fear is that farmers will be required to file for water permits, as envisioned in a bill by Smith that should be debated next week.
The commissioner said pricey permitting could threaten the viability of small, family-owned farms, especially those sized close to 20 acres. The average size of a farm in South Carolina is just short of 200 acres, he said.
Smith charged that Weathers’ real concern is his ability to tell big industrial growers fighting for irrigation water out West under a different water legal paradigm to “come to South Carolina where you don’t even have to file for a permit.”
Conversely, Smith said that Weathers’ position would do more to imperil the small family farm by threatening its irrigation sources if the state lures thirsty megafarms upriver.
“We’re going to pass this bill,” says Smith. “The only question is, are we going to do it this year, proactively, or in the future after a crisis.”
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