Category: Bluffton SC Outdoors

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Save The May River

Recent decades of development have brought an influx of impervious surfaces, such as parking lots and roads. Now that impervious surfaces cover more than 10 percent of our watershed area, it is a widely held scientific fact that the water quality within has declined. Poor water quality leads to medical illness in humans and decimates oysters, fish and other marine life.

With a few exceptions, the settlement pattern south of the Broad River has been comprised of conventional suburban sprawl: single-use, single-family detached subdivisions, strip-commercial, and auto-dominated thoroughfares which brings with it a high percentage of impervious surface. The clearing of land for sprawling suburban development is directly linked to the impaired waterways because without enough natural land-cover left intact to serve its filtering function, stormwater carries sediment and pollutants across impervious surfaces and directly into the rivers. The impacts of impervious surface are exponential: a one-acre parking lot produces 16 times the volume of runoff that comes from a one-acre meadow (Schueller & Holland, 2000). Therefore, developing under a conventional suburban sprawl settlement pattern guarantees enormous stormwater volumes while amplifying its negative impacts on our waterways.

“The clearing of land for sprawling suburban development is directly linked to the impaired waterways because without enough natural land cover left intact to serve its filtering function, stormwater carries sediment and pollutants across impervious surfaces and directly into the rivers.” (Schueller & Holland, 2000).

Moreover, the streams, creeks, marshes and rivers surrounded by filled and impervious watersheds are less diverse, less stable, and less productive than those in natural watersheds. (Schueller & Holland, 2000) Streams in watersheds with more than ten percent hard surfaces become physically unstable, causing erosion and sedimentation, (Booth, 1991; Booth & Reinelt, 1993) and habitat quality falls below the level necessary to sustain a broad diversity of aquatic life. (Booth, Booth &R; Shaver et al., 1995) In sum, a watershed’s diversity, stability and quality become increasingly compromised as percentages of impervious surface increase. As a general rule, a ten-percent [impervious surface] threshold establishes an empirical point beyond which ecosystem function, in general, declines because of individual and cumulative stresses. (Beach, 2002) Studies specifically focusing on coastal estuaries have confirmed that general degradation begins at the ten-percent impervious threshold. (Taylor, 1993) There is an indisputable positive relationship between the traditional development pattern (compact, mixed-use, traditional neighborhood development) and its minimized impervious surface that ultimately results in greater water quality.

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The Search for Bluffton’s Soul

By Johnboy Jones

“I just read a peer reviewed article, approved through blind review by the author’s sister, that you can tell the essence of a person’s soul through their last 3 Google searches.

Based on this new knowledge I have acquired, I invite you to share with me your last 3 Google searches, and I will tell you who you really are at your inner core”

This was a post on Facebook from my old college roommate. And ironically, the most popular search around the world is “facebook,” which is even funnier given that you could just as easily type facebook.com into a URL bar. “google” and “youtube” are also popular and likewise amusing.

But this got me thinking  – What are people in Bluffton Googling? Is it mundane things like Walmart, Weather and Wordle? Or does Bluffton have a unique Soul?

As a side note, I tried mine finding that I had turned that part of Google off to which I responded to my college roommate “No Soul Found.”

 

Blufftonian’s Top Google Searches:

“How can I prove bike paths are polluting the May River?”

These folks obviously live in the Alljoy area where they have been fighting the installation of bike paths for over 20 years. (*I recently saw this again as a Facebook discussion  – but I remember it from way back ) And it’s good for water-quality that in that part of the river by the Calibogue Sound the tidal flush is so large (salinity kills bacteria) that the amount of pavement and dirty run-off isn’t as much of an issue as it is in the Buckwalter Area – which directs stormwater run-off into the headwaters via Stoney and Rose Dhu creeks.

Immediately after things started being developed on Buckwalter oysters in the headwaters became inedible. The people in Alljoy know this as most of them are “been heres” who just want to be left alone – and who could blame them? Certainly not me … but, I am also a bicycle interloper who rides everywhere there is no gate – which gets me the occasional dirty look despite the fact that over the past 35 years I have replaced 50% of my blood with cooking oil and grits. I guess the Alljoy folks will have to explain the real reason they don’t want bike paths.

The next most popular search is:

“Restaurants near me” —  This doesn’t make us unique until you look into the nature of local eats. When my daughter was little Nickle Pumpers was about the only thing in Bluffton. There was also the old Piggly Wiggly but not much else. We used to take Sunday Afternoon trips to the Savannah Mall and then go out to eat. Nowadays,  we have a ton of options – which is awesome. I sometimes call this era of Bluffton’s History – “Bluffton’s Schmaltyz Renaissance.” Things are pretty good right now – especially restaurants – but at the same time a way of life is definitely being lost. There just aren’t that many places that have grown as fast as Bluffton and it’s a shock to the culture – and I think we all know what the traffic is going to look like here in 5 years.

I remember volunteering with the Rotary Club at Mayfest making french fries in their food truck and seeing that the woman from Eggcentricity had a urinal strapped to the electrical pole on the corner … and the laminated 8.5″ x 11″ message in the urinal in bright blue and green lettering was “Yankee Drinking Fountain.” — And I had been here long enough to know that the proper response to something like this is “Bless your heart” although I like the NY version better. But it just goes to show, that even on the day Blufftonians should be rolling out the red carpet – there’s some bitterness there – even if they really aren’t sure why.

Which brings us to the all-revealing third in the series of top 3 Google searches that make up Bluffton’s soul …  “What is a Blufftonian?”

The existential search for Bluffton’s soul continues –  and will continue as long as our growth is exponential. We get new neighbors everyday, and I for one welcome them. Where I came from the weather sucked, but the schools were great and the graduation rate was 93%. The taxes were high, but you got something for your money. The Public Works Department did an awesome job and there was very little crime. The Police Department didn’t seem like it was in a  constant state of limbo like it does here. There were tons of parks and community pools and it was safe to ride your bike on the street. I guess Bluffton’s soul is now part Yankee. I don’t care if taxes go up as long as I finally get something substantial for my money.

And I think, like everywhere the soul of a place is found in the collective goodness of the community. That’s a little bit hard to find here sometimes but there are tons of great folks doing what they can to make Bluffton just a little bit better. And I for one, hope they succeed more in the future than they did in the past.

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May River Science Is Undeniable!

The science is easy to understand and long-proven.

“The clearing of land for sprawling suburban development is directly linked to the impaired waterways because without enough natural land cover left intact to serve its filtering function, stormwater carries sediment and pollutants across impervious surfaces and directly into the rivers.” (Schueller & Holland, 2000).

“With a few exceptions, the settlement pattern south of the Broad River has been comprised of conventional suburban sprawl: single-use, single-family detached subdivisions, strip-commercial, and auto-dominated thoroughfares which brings with it a high percentage of impervious surface.” (Schueller & Holland, 2000).

“If the greater Bluffton area is developed according to the approvals as they currently exist, impervious surface will exceed 20% in the May River watershed and edible May River oysters will be a thing of the past.” (Coastal Conservation League)

We are already over 10% and we add to the problem nearly every day. We can continue to grow, but we must conform to the simple science above.

“Over the past (two) decade(s), various stormwater management techniques have been employed in an attempt to mitigate the impacts of stormwater runoff caused by impervious surface without altering the conventional suburban settlement pattern. These techniques include, but are not limited to: stormwater management ordinances, Best Management Practices, devices at the end of outfalls, and maintenance and repair of stormwater retention ponds. However, the current inventory of on-site safeguards does not allow us to ignore the ten-percent rule. The only aquatic systems that will retain the full range of species and ecological functions will be those where less than ten percent of the watershed is impervious.” (Schueller & Holland, 2000)

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Saving The May River

About a decade ago, as part of an environmental restoration grant application, about 500 homes near the river were reported to have septic tanks. That number has not changed significantly in the last ten years, in part because most home construction since then have been connected to sewer systems rather than septic tanks.

Yet, we have an increasingly damaging problem with pollution entering the May River.

“The clearing of land for sprawling suburban development is directly linked to the impaired waterways because without enough natural land cover left intact to serve its filtering function, stormwater carries sediment and pollutants across impervious surfaces and directly into the rivers.” (Schueller & Holland, 2000).

While efforts to provide sanitary sewers as broadly as possible are encouraging, these efforts can also divert attention from the leading cause of polluted runoff – poor planning and inappropriate development patterns leading to sprawl.

Similarly, the limited focus of current testing is hindering our monitoring efforts. Testing that is infrequent or that is restricted to only fecal coliform provides little information about safety risks and long term pollution trends. Because of these testing limits, we actually don’t know how safe it is to swim in the headwaters of the May River. Per the Coastal Conservation League, “if the greater Bluffton area is developed according to the approvals as they currently exist, impervious surface will exceed 20% in the May River watershed and edible May River oysters will be a thing of the past.”

So, while the removal of septic tanks is a small part of the solution, it is not, in and of itself, the total solution. We need to focus on smarter land use. Without correcting our problems with suburban sprawl, we will not succeed.