[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 34 (Thursday, March 21, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S2255]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        PORT OF CHARLESTON SHOULD LIVE WITH NATURE'S TOLERANCES

 Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want to share with my 
colleagues an excellent column by Thomas E. Thornhill that appeared in 
Charleston's The Post and Courier on March 15, 2002. Mr. Thornhill 
points out the need to balance the environmental and esthetic 
consequences of expanding the port of Charleston with the economic 
benefits such expansion brings.
  As we debate what to do with the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge as 
part of the energy bill, I think it is important to add to our dialogue 
a perspective from someone who has seen the consequences of expansion 
in South Carolina, and who believes that nature mismanaged retaliates 
with relentless vengeance.
  I ask that the article be printed in the Record.
      The article follows.

          [From the Post and Courier, Friday, Mar. 15, 2002.]

       Port of Charleston Should Live Within Nature's Tolerances

                        (By Thomas E. Thornhill)

       How about a different slant on the port expansion issue? Do 
     we really know what Charleston Harbor can tolerate? This is a 
     finite body of water which has some limitations dictated by 
     nature. Yes, expansion of the port facilities will mean more 
     business, more trucks, more highway building, etc., but what 
     will it do to our rivers and harbor?
       My brother and I have been working for water and soil 
     conservation for over 40 years. Our father coined the phrase, 
     ``Nature mismanaged, retaliates with relentless vengeance.''
       We, the citizens, and the Corps of Engineers mismanaged 
     nature with the diversion of the Santee River into the Cooper 
     River, and we're still paying for it. We were pumping enough 
     mud out of Charleston Harbor to cover peninsular Charleston 
     by about 6 feet each year. That was reduced with another 
     diversion or rediversion canal, but the mud continues to 
     build up--just look at Drum Island and the Cooper side of 
     Daniel Island--tons and tons of spoil pumped from the 
     rivers..
       We are not a locale of deep water; let's recognize that. 
     You need only spend a few days in our creeks and marshes to 
     know that we have that wonderful pluff mud, the nursery 
     grounds for the Atlantic Coast fisheries, that does not and 
     will not stay in place like rock and sand of other ports.
       Waterside construction causes the natural flow to slow and, 
     in short order, the mud builds up. How else would we have 
     land east of East Bay Street, which was the city sea wall. 
     Look at the SPA Passenger Terminal, Yacht Basin, Maritime 
     Center--full of mud. Examine the land around the Sheraton 
     Hotel or Comfort Inn along the Ashley. It's sinking. There is 
     no way to contain our mud except by gentle slopes and 
     marshes.
       As we dig our channels deeper and deeper, we are 
     mismanaging nature. We cannot dig 50-foot ditches in our 
     rivers without causing sloughing off of the shoreline, the 
     changing of the flow of our rivers, and the sinking of our 
     highlands. The harbor jetties are blamed for the demise of 
     Morris Island so that the lighthouse is now at sea. The 
     jetties are blamed for changing the geography on Folly 
     Island. Breakwaters, jetties and revetments are now outlawed 
     as they caused more erosion that they were designed to cure.
       Charleston Harbor has limits dictated by nature. We cannot 
     continue to defy natural laws by overbuilding our shorelines, 
     packing our marshes with silt and fill, and overpopulating 
     our water courses. We cannot be one of the largest shipping 
     ports in the country and yet have the finest harbor resource 
     on the East coast. We cannot fill our waterfronts with docks 
     and still be America's Most Historic City and have the 
     quality of life that goes with it. We cannot double the 
     amount of super ships and still have one of the finest 
     recreational and scenic harbors in the world--to say nothing 
     about the inability of our transportation network to handle 
     the additional load.
       Trucks are clogging I-26 and I-526 on any workday. Driving 
     a car is hazardous. The State Ports Authority has done a 
     magnificent job to make our port facilities and service the 
     envy of the world. With this same talent, they now need to 
     find a future that can live within the environmental 
     restraints that nature has dealt us. Perhaps their future 
     should be planned as though Daniel Island did not exist--the 
     filling of those marshlands is damage enough. We must not, as 
     the Bible teaches, ``sell our birthright for a mess of 
     pottage.''
       As a port, we should live within the hand dealt us by 
     nature. As a port city, we should do the best with what we 
     were given to save it for future generations. Remember that 
     thousands of acres of marsh have been destroyed just to keep 
     the harbor dredged and remember that every structure on a 
     waterway or beach causes erosion problems elsewhere. Of 
     course the Port produces jobs and economic benefit (it always 
     has and will), but the incremental increase gained by 
     increasing the size of port facilities is to the profit of a 
     relatively small amount of the population, while those who 
     live here must shoulder the burden, esthetically, 
     economically and environmentally. ``Nature mismanaged 
     retaliates with relentless vengeance.''

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