River of doubt:
CaroLinks facing criticism from officials, riverfront residents
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Perhaps Carolinks should change the billboard at the Interstate 26 and Montague Avenue interchange to read “Rail, barges … controversy.”
A month ago CaroLinks announced it had amended its business plan for an intermodal cargo distribution center and now intended to rely solely on barges to transport cargo containers from the Port of Charleston’s Wando Welch terminal 100 miles up the Cooper River, through Lake Moultrie and Lake Marion to an inland site near Orangeburg.
Now, the Charleston-based startup is being criticized as a potential threat to the river environment and the lifestyles of those who live along it.
Among the latest to join the chorus of concerns about the business’ plans are the monks of Mepkin Abbey.
Writing to the Charleston Regional Business Journal on behalf of the Abbey, Brother Stanislaus said the monks had not been approached by either the company or government officials about the planned barged traffic on the river.
“This itself is a concern to us,” Brother Stanislaus wrote. “It seems to me that it is incumbent upon the company to explain to the various stakeholders along the river—landowners, industry, those who use the river for recreational purposes—what they are proposing and the archeological, ecological and environmental consequences that might follow or will not follow.
“Would (CaroLinks’ plans) be disruptive to our activities and the natural beauty of our facility? That depends on just what the company is proposing—and that is too vague for me to make a judgment on at the present time. So I would want to know more and believe all stakeholders have the right to know more.”
He added, “I would rather err on the side of caution, because of the possible significant consequences to the river and the life along the river that such a plan might cause.”
On Oct. 9, Berkeley County Supervisor Jim Rozier told members of the county council that while he may have only two months left in his term, he intends to spend that time, and whatever time he feels he needs to later as a “loud and vocal” private citizen, opposing CaroLinks’ plan.
“From what I’ve heard and read, their plan calls for transporting these containers, on barges, directly through the heart of Berkeley County, and no one from the company has ever even tried to contact us about it,” Rozier said.
“The Cooper River is not the Mississippi, it’s not a mile wide, and my concern is that this plan will simply destroy it.”
George Schneider, a Santee resident and chairman of the Santee Development Association, expressed a similar level of concern about impacts to his community.
“We have nothing against development or progress, but we’re very apprehensive about what’s being discusses,” Schneider said. “The story seems to change on an almost daily basis, according to the local paper, and most of what we’ve heard relates to Orangeburg, not Santee.
“We are a recreation and retirement community, known for fishing, golf, the whole tourist thing. We are concerned about the environment and worry that having barges constantly coming by our homes and recreating spots will diminish our quality of life. To date no one has explained how this won’t.”
Through the heart of Berkeley
Although Rozier readily admitted that the county council has no jurisdiction over the waterway, “we can still raise hell about a proposal that threatens all the land we’ve protected along the river.”
Roughly 48% of the land in Berkeley County, including large stretches along the Cooper River, is protected by national forest and conservation easements, according to Rozier. He said he advised the Lower Berkeley Trust, which holds many of the easements, about CaroLinks’ plan in early October.
“Not surprisingly, they said they didn’t know anything about the plan to barge containers up the river,” he said. “When it comes to Berkeley County, (CaroLinks) has been sailing under the radar for quite some time now. They should have known that it was going to blow up sometime.”
Rozier could get behind a plan to move cargo containers inland by rail, he said, but adamantly opposes the use of barges.
“First of all, the river is very narrow in some places, and many of its banks are old rice marshes that would simply get washed away by the barge traffic,” he said. “The other thing is this river is presently largely used for recreation, for fishing for catfish and rock fish, and those sportsmen simply wouldn’t be able to drop anchor and fish the way they do now.”
Rozier also is concerned about the effect additional uses of the locks, linking the river to Lake Moultrie, would have on the water level of the lake and, by extension, Santee Cooper’s ability to generate electricity.
“My understanding is you release 6 million gallons from the lake every time you open the locks. Is anybody asking what the impact of those additional openings will have on the river and on power to the region?” he asked.
“We committed an awful lot of time, sweat and toil protecting the land along the river; in my view, to allow this to happen would be a disaster.”
Rozier hopes the council will back his suggestion to oppose the planned barge traffic on the Cooper River. He also hopes to be joined in opposition by the historic preservation community, conservationists, the owners of the rice fields, fishermen and other recreational users of the river, he said.
“Frankly, I think the battle has just begun,” Rozier said. “Maybe it’s proper I fire the first shot.”
Critics “badly misinformed”
CaroLinks had originally wanted to create an intermodal transportation network linking the Port of Charleston by rail and by barge to an 800-acre, $250 million freight distribution site along the Interstate 95 corridor, with a majority of the land set aside for privately owned warehousing and distribution centers.
Key to the concept was a planned staging facility at Shipyard Creek in North Charleston, where at least some of the containers picked up by barge at the Wando Welch Terminal would be transferred to rail.
It was after CaroLinks announced it had temporarily abandoned plans to purchase the site that it said its intentions were to barge all the cargo instead.
After Rozier launched his broadside against the plan, Alan Capper, the company’s spokesman, said a meeting between Rozier and CaroLinks CEO Lucy Duncan-Scheman was in the process of being scheduled.
“We don’t take offense to his criticism, because I’m sure Rozier is well-intentioned in expressing his concerns,” Capper said. “At the same time, however, based on his comments, I think he’s badly misinformed about our project.”
Schneider said “misinformed” was the same word Duncan-Scheman herself used in a telephone conversation he had with her shortly after the Orangeburg Times and Democrat reported Santee residents’ concerns about the barge plan.
“We talked. She was very nice, gracious, but we didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of her plan,” Schneider said.
He added that a face-to-face meeting with Duncan-Scheman hasn’t been scheduled, but said that was mainly due to his group’s wanting to wait until the city makes its official position known.
“We’re not against growth. We’re not against CaroLinks. But we do at least expect the courtesy of consultation on something like this, and we want assurances that what growth is going to occur is clean, quiet growth that we won’t be adversely impacted by,” Schneider said.
A commercial waterway
Capper said that throughout its formation, CaroLinks has always operated under the premise that it is a “market-driven company” and that “there’s a commercial need for us.”
“On the one hand, there’s the problem of port congestion, a problem that we very much see ourselves as a solution for,” he said. “The other thing is relieving traffic congestion in the area, particularly on Interstate 26.”
Capper then responded to Rozier’s assertions by stating that barging the containers up the Cooper River is actually an environmentally sound way to move them, creating far less emissions that either trucks or trains, and creating little wake or wave action.
One of Rozier’s concerns is that wakes created by the barges would destroy the vestiges of historic rice marshes in Berkeley County.
“In reality, we’ve done an analysis that suggests far greater wakes are created by recreational craft,” Capper said. “If Rozier really wanted to protect the rice marshes, he’d post ‘no wake’ zones, but then, of course, the recreational community would be up in arms.”
The river has a long history of commercial use, Capper said, pointing out that Nucor Steel, Amoco and Jacobs Applied Technology all ship cargo up the river and that SCE&G is currently considering barging coal up the river as well.
“We are not going to be the company that breaks the virgin waters,” Capper said. “The Cooper River is a commercial waterway.”
But when contacted, these companies said the farthest up the river any of them transported cargo was 12 miles.
Robin Montgomery, a spokesman for SCE&G, said the utility is currently building a coal-burning facility next to its William Station plant, outside of Goose Creek, and will barge about 500,000 tons of South American coal annually from the Port of Charleston to the new plant on Bushy Creek.
Like the private companies, SCE&G’s coal barges will travel no farther than 10 to 12 miles up the river.
Preservation at risk
Also taken by surprise by CaroLinks’ intentions were the founders of the Cooper River Underwater Heritage Trail, one of whom is Christopher F. Amer, South Carolina’s deputy underwater archaeologist and associate director for maritime research in the state.
The trail consists of four shipwrecks, one of which dates from the Revolutionary War; the remains of the oldest known ferry landing in South Carolina, dating from 1705; and several plantation era artifacts in waters ranging in depth from 12 to 35 feet.
“All but one of the sites is outside the shipping channel, but given that the width of the river in the area ranges only from 75 to 100 feet, there could be some wave action impact to the mooring buoys we deploy from April to November,” Amer said.
Schneider described the situation with CaroLinks a standoff.”
“I was with the U.S. Postal Service 38 years. I’m now 78 years old, and we have a tranquil life here. How long do I have left?” he said.
“I think we’re all open-minded people. I think we’re all thinking it might adversely impact us, but then again, we acknowledge it might not. Before this starts coming up the river and into the lake, they really ought to talk to us.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version