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Tapping resources
Lack of consolidated water provider leaves communities thirsty for water, and help
By Shannon Cavanaugh
Contributing Writer
The air was hot and dusty when Leo Russo, community development director for Mount Pleasant Waterworks, stopped by Chris Snyder’s home in the small, unincorporated town of McClellanville. A few men sat beneath a nearby shade tree and wiped sweat from their brows.
A couple of sodas were chilling in a galvanized tub of ice, but all 78-year-old Snyder could talk about was a glass of water.
“We used to have the best drinking water here,” Snyder recalled. “Where that tree is used to be the well, and we’d come and get ice-cold water to drink and put a watermelon in a sack and put it down in the well and it was so cold.”
Snyder’s tap water is reddish-orange, smells like rotten eggs and stains the sink and clothes a dark, rusty red. There are more than 800 families in the Sewee to Santee area of northern Charleston County who cannot drink their tap water nor use it to bathe or wash clothes.
Tests conducted by the Department of Health and Environmental Control show traces of fecal bacteria contamination, iron and hydrogen in the well water.
“This ranks as a tier-two contaminate. It’s not so much a public health issue as it is unpleasing to drink,” said Stephen Calk, a regional compliance officer with DHEC. “However, it does raise certain questions in your mind. I am worried about the waste lying around. That’s a risk.”
DHEC recently ranked McClellanville second in the state in a survey determining areas in need of improvements in public water service, wells and septic tanks.
The wells, many of them hand-dug, have gone bad. Some families go without septic systems; about a dozen still use an outdoor toilet.
Despite the community’s plea to Charleston County, there is still no public water available, Snyder said. To get clean drinking water, area residents must drive more than 50 miles round-trip to either Georgetown or Mount Pleasant. Some families live on fixed incomes of $600 a month and spend up to $100 a month for water. Public water service would cost them less than $25 a month for 7,700 gallons of water.
Charleston County Council Chairman Leon Stavrinakis said it is not that the county government doesn’t care, but that the county is not in the business of providing public water and sewer service.
“The truth of it is, it’s complicated and most people don’t understand that the county is not responsible for providing drinking water,” said Stavrinakis. “There is no consolidated water provider in the county. If they are frustrated, they should rely on whoever is designated to provide water, and east of the Cooper River it’s the Mount Pleasant Waterworks.
“In the two years I’ve acted as chairman, I haven’t heard of a complaint from them. They came to us this year and asked us for help with clean drinking water. We gave them $175,000.”
Charleston County awarded that money after Russo submitted a grant request and met with the council in May. Russo said he is doing everything he can to fulfill an obligation to bring water and fire protection to the area.
As a temporary fix, Mount Pleasant Waterworks is putting in three emergency water-dispensing stations in the area. Residents will be able to fill their jugs with free water just a few miles from home.
The Mount Pleasant Waterworks will start the installation of the first of the stations this month at the Emergency Medical Services Station on Highway 17 in unincorporated McClellanville. It expects to have the dispensing station running this month.
To provide the service, Russo tapped into a lot of sources, spent a lot of time on the phone, spoke to families and went before local leaders.
In November 2005, Russo received a $50,000 community development block grant to gather water-quality data, along with a $75,000 contribution from Mount Pleasant Waterworks commissioners to pay for engineering and design of the water stations. The county followed with its $175,000 addition last month.
Russo is now trying to raise more than $15.5 million to provide the families of the Sewee to Santee water district the same basic services that other county residents receive.
The money would pay for a system that includes development of four wells, water storage and treatment, and a distribution system. The system would treat the water to ensure disinfection along with iron removal. Mount Pleasant Waterworks would develop, operate and maintain the system.
Russo is working with U.S. Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C., to secure federal money from the Department of Agriculture Appropriations Bill and is putting pressure on state government. He said it will take three to five years to raise the $15.5 million, unless “all levels of government can partner” on the project and provide funds.
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