Mount Pleasant Town Council discusses plan to protect wetlands

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCBD) – The Town of Mount Pleasant is discussing how to protect wetlands at the local level.

The flood resilience committee agenda item comes as the Town of Bluffton has lost nearly 500 of acres of wetlands. Officials are attempting to take a proactive approach on one of the town’s most valuable natural resources.

“You cannot wait on resiliency issues until you need it because if you wait until you need it, you’re years behind the curve,” said Will Haynie, mayor of Mount Pleasant.

The ordinances the town is considering includes zoning permits, development restriction, enforcement, and staff to facilitate this initiative.

“Two things. One is wetlands are important even quote isolated wetlands because they can hold a million and a half gallons of water. So, they’re important one – as part of our ecosystem, but also part of green infrastructure,” Haynie said. “If that water gets displaced, guess who has to pay for it to be managed, collected, and dispersed – and that’s the taxpayers.”

The mayor added he has spoken to his constituents, who prefer these potential ordinances rather than bearing the cost of losing these wetlands. Environmental organization, Charleston Waterkeeper, said this is a step in the right direction.

“This great news, the Town of Mount Pleasant should be commended for this great effort. At the federal level, we’re losing protections for wetlands and as everybody knows – the Lowcountry is one big wetland,” Andrew Wunderley, executive director of Charleston Waterkeeper, said. “So, anything we can being doing at the local level to protect wetlands from being destroyed is going to be wonderful for our community both in terms of water quality and habitat quality. But also in terms of resiliency.”

Additionally, in San Francisco v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Water Act applies to continuous connections of bodies of water. This is what states used to protect water quality, but officials said the ruling puts more of the Lowcountry at risk for losing protections.

“I think it’s also important for folks to remember what it was like before the Clean Water Act. Before the Clean Water Act, we had no sewage treatment. Raw sewage was discharged straight into the Charleston Harbor. Rivers in the industrial Northeast and Midwest often caught on fire because they were so polluted,” Wunderley said. “Over the last 50 plus years, the Clean Water Act has done a lot to protect water quality at the local level.”

Haynie believes by moving this initiative forward, it will allow other municipalities to follow suit.

“A lot of things of resiliency are done this way. One municipality takes the lead and others see it and follow. That was the case when we did plastic bags, six-seven years ago,” Haynie said.