“Friends” still battling Kiawah Spit development

Organizer of Friends of the Kiawah River, Sidi Limehouse, wrote the following letter in April 2009. He describes the ongoing legal issues that his group faces in opposing this development and summarizes the issues, including devastating results for wildlife.

Cap’n Sam’s Spit: An Environment at Risk – A Call to Action

This is an educational message so that you will know what is taking place with Cap’n Sam’s spit. We want you to know the development of the spit would be an environmental disaster not to mention the physical degradation wrought by even a minor hurricane – 50 mansions, with their associated trash, in the river.

Ocean Coastal Resource Management (OCRM), a division of the Department of Health & Environmental Control (DHEC), has denied Leonard Long and Buddy Darby, the developers of Kiawah Island, permission to build a revetment wall on the back side of the spit. This revetment would have run 2700 feet from Beachwalker Park toward Cap’n Sam’s Inlet. There are 5,280 feet in a mile if that gives you some perspective. The OCRM did allow the area of erosion threatening the park some 270 feet but denied that portion which would run down the river and would be placed in pure beach sand for almost a half a mile.

Now here come Leonard & Buddy asking the court to reverse the OCRM’s decision and to force the OCRM to issue the permit for the full length. I’ve lived here for 70 years and have seen unbridled development denigrate the habitat for most species of birds and many animals. The worst environmental degradation in South Carolina could happen right before our eyes. Only by visiting the spit and seeing the beauty and fragility of this place, can one see and feel the need to preserve Cap’n Sam’s in its natural state.

Leonard and Buddy have hired the two most thorough and best lawyers in the state, Gedney Howe and Trennie Walker, to handle their appeal. Leonard and Buddy have unlimited financial resources. The appeal is before the court. We have formed a local group, Friends of the Kiawah River, to uphold the OCRM’s decision and have retained two lawyers from the S. C. Environmental Law Project (SCELP). We are also working with the Coastal Conservation League (CCL).

Stopping the revetment wall is paramount to stopping construction of the 50 mansions. Some time in the past, the town of Kiawah agreed to support “the boys” in procuring the necessary permits to develop the spit; mainly that any road built to or on the spit becomes the responsibility of the town. Any storm with even a mild tidal surge would wash across the road-revetment or no revetment. It would be the town’s responsibility to rebuild the road and any other infrastructure such as water and sewer lines. This will happen. No one can say when we will have a hurricane, but everyone knows that one is going to come ashore across the spit.

The shoreline of Capt’n Sam’s spit, the river side, is the primary nesting spot for the diamond back terrapin of the Kiawah Basin, documented by Dr. Whit Gibbons, Professor Emeritus of the University of Georgia, and Dr. Michael Dorcas of Davidson College. These men have been studying for years the decline of the terrapin population of the Kiawah estuary. Their conclusion is that the revetment would be a very serious threat to the terrapins that inhabit the Kiawah River and its surrounding creeks. I believe the primary reason for this serious decline is loss of nesting habitat; terrapins cannot scale a wall.

Cap’n Sam’s Spit is 100% beach sand front to back for its entire length. When the sand piles up, driven by the wind, it becomes a sand dune. It may get elevation, but no matter how high, it remains a sand dune. The bible refers to the foolishness of building on shifting sand. The soil of Kiawah Island, Seabrook Island and John’s Island consists of a loam some 15,000 years old. Cap’n Sam’s Spit is in its entirety pure white sand that was deposited by the elements in very recent geological times. The spit is an accumulation of beach sand -nothing else. The Spit may have 10% of its acreage above the mean high water but as the old adage says, “Your cat can have kittens in the oven but that don’t make ’em biscuits”

“Horsemen” (Horsemen being an old local name for bottle nose dolphins) are unique in that they drive mullet onto the sand and then beach themselves to feed. This is one of only two places in the world where they have learned this trick called “strand feeding”. They seem to do this when mullet are plentiful and moving from the ocean to the Kiawah River estuary. These horsemen parade up and down the river driving the mullet ever closer to the shore. The boss lady gives a signal and pandemonium breaks out. Some mullet leap onto the land and the dolphin actually propel themselves on to terra firma and feed. They will not be able to do this on concrete.

To learn more about what you can do go to www.kiawahriver.org. It is your world and your children’s world. Please contribute what you can to help compensate our lawyers and help save this fragile piece of nature. Instructions for making tax deductible donations can be found on our website.