Volume 3 Issue 1

May 18 , 2007

Lettitor
By Heather Holbrook

     Welcome to Volume 3, Issue 1. It has been 730 days since you first read the pages of Volume 1, Issue 1 of The Island Eye News and to celebrate your island paper’s anniversary we are…working. Working on Volume 3, Issue 2. No big festival or parade; no fanfare or clinking of glasses (well, maybe a clink or two) as our staff of three has grown to an organization of eight hard-working people.
      And we welcome our newest member to the team, Janie Ball of Sullivan’s Island. Janie brings her graphic design experience and dedication to excellence to our production staff. In addition, allow me to laud the talent of so many contributing writers and photographers; without each of whom these last two years I’d have much less to work with and the reader would have much less to read every week. Thanks most of all to all you neighbors who take the time to tell us how much you value the paper and consider it a cornerstore in your community.
     I don’t know if you have ever started your own media empire, but let me tell you, it isn’t easy. A special thanks to our publisher Lynn Pierotti for his tireless enthusiasm and unparalleled dedication to the cause. Someday our little success story will become a pretty good book. One that churns out royalties.
     So onward we go. We welcome the opportunity to better serve the communities of Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island, Goat Island and Dewees and look forward to more fun than ever.

Surf or turf?
By Kristin Hackler

     On May 4, the DeeDee Paschal Barrier Island Trust held its annual conference at the Department of Natural Resources Marina on James Island, bringing together some of the greatest scientific, political and environmental minds in South Carolina. Mayors from all of the South Carolina coastal islands were invited as well, providing the voice of local government to the conference. The goal of the meeting, above all, was to find how the communities that create South Carolina’s coast could work together to reach the common goal of balance between tourism, growth and sustainability.
      The coast of South Carolina is growing at a phenomenal rate. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) estimates that 9% of the U.S. population resides on the east coast and projects a 10% to 12% growth in the next ten years. In Charleston County alone there are currently 135,000 building permits under request, which makes NOAA’s estimate increase seem like a conservative number.
     As much as we’d like to not think about it, tourism is South Carolina’s largest industry. With roughly 173,000 people visiting our coast every day, the tourism industry has created over 216,000 jobs and a gross state income of $11 billion per year, with $150 million from hotel and restaurant taxes and another $40 million from accommodation taxes. The South Carolina Council on Competitiveness’ goal is to double the amount of tourism in South Carolina in the next five years.
     There’s not much we can do about the tourism aspect. It is a necessary part of our state’s economic stability, but we can protect what we have and create ways in which to preserve our islands and coast for the coming generations.
     Working hard toward this goal is the DeeDee Paschal Barrier Island Trust. Given non-profit status in 2005, the DeeDee Paschal Trust was created to facilitate and support research and education that define the best practices for barrier islands along the South Carolina and southeastern coast.
     Mary Graham, vice president of Public Policy and Regional Advancement at the Charleston Metro of Commerce provided the information on the growth of tourism in the state, handing the floor over to the combined forces of Dr. Paul Gayes, director of the Burroughs and Chapin Center for Marine and Wetland Studies since 1989 and Palmetto professor of marine science and geology at Coastal Carolina University, Dr. Bob van Dolah, director of the Marine Resources Research Institute and David Betenbaugh, a recent graduate from College of Charleston and intern at the DeeDee Paschal Barrier Island Trust, representing the scientific aspect of our coastal changes. The conclusion that the three speakers reached could be summed up in three words that were defined by Paul Gayes: defend, retreat or delay.
     It is a fact of life that our shorelines are in constant flux. Sand gets picked up from one place and deposited in another. As the shape of the coastline fluctuates, so do the patterns of depletion and accretion. Our choices for dealing with these changes are to either defend our coast by building impermeable walls, such as Holland has done in the past, retreating from the coast and letting the changes take place without interference or delay, which is the current action taking place on most barrier islands. “Unfortunately, “Paul pointed out, “Delay is only a midterm solution to a long term problem.”
     Although groins have been used in the past to help with sediment loss, it has been found that impermeable surfaces do more harm than good. The current form that most islands are using is beach renourishment where sand is dredged from designated offshore sites and poured onto the beaches. Research has been performed to study the impact of the dredged sand on the environment and the conclusions so far are that the invertebrates that live in the sand below the tide line on a beach (there are between 1,000 and 2,000 creatures in a 12 square foot area) are relatively unaffected, as long as the sand is of the same consistency as that on the beach. Ghost crabs are the most affected creature on the beach according to Bob van Dolah. His teams have been studying the effects of dredging sand on ghost crabs for over a year and have yet to see any sort of environmental recovery by the species. Turtles are affected, but only if the dredgers do not grade the sand as they deposit it. If the sand creates a wall, the turtles can’t get to the soft, dry sand to lay eggs. The same goes for impermeable surfaces. If the turtle cannot get onto the beach, it will eventually tire out and drop its eggs on to the ocean floor and lose the entire clutch.
     Another problem is the borrow areas. If the dredging goes too deep, the holes created fill with mud, which is not good for renourishment. Some holes have been capped with sand to facilitate the area’s return to status quo, but it seems that the best method of dredging involves larger collection sites from which the dredgers only take the top meter or so of sand, thereby limiting the dent created on the ocean floor.
     To help the towns and cities of the barrier islands monitor the vacillation of their coasts, David Betenbaugh presented a method created by Anton DuMars to monitor the growth and decay of beaches. The process involves minimal equipment and minimal training and can be done by trained volunteers instead of expensive surveying companies. His study of Dewees Island over a one year period proved to be very useful and sparked the interest of several attending mayors.
     On the political side, speakers from the Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) presented their case, stating the guidelines by which they permit building to happen along beachfront areas. Bill Eiser of the OCRM summed it up as best as he could. “There are two lines of juristiction when building near the beach,” he stated. “There is the standard zone, where inlet processes do not dominate the shoreline and there is the inlet zone, where inlet and shoal processes dominate the shoreline.” There are two types of inlet zone: unstabilized, where the OCRM looks at a 40 year section of the area’s history and determines the most landward line where water reached in that area as the baseline for building, and stabilized, which follows the same rules as a standard zone. He added that in 1988, a law was established stating that setbacks had to be a minimum of 20 feet from the baseline. There could be no new construction seaward of the baseline and no new seawalls built. If any seawalls already in place are more than 50% damaged, they can not be rebuilt.
     The only exemption from this law is Folly Beach. Since the creation of the harbor jetties that protect Charleston Harbor have had such great impact on the erosion of Folly, the town was given permission to rebuild seawalls. The unfortunate consequences today of allowing this sort of building has several beachfront stilt houses falling into the ocean.
     In 1988, a Blue Ribbon committee was created to recognize problems with oceanfront development and at the time, their recommendation was to retreat. Since then there has been rapid beachfront growth and development and an annual “State of the Beach” report, but the time has come to reconvene the committee and face the growing fluctuations of the islands and the impact on barrier island and coastal residents. All of the attendees at the conference agreed. The committee needs to be reformed and the immediate issues, as well as the ones in the far future, need to be addressed.
     Mayor Mike Sottile of Isle of Palms and Mayor Carl Beckmann of Folly Beach were introduced to speak on behalf of the local governments and were joined by the mayors of Pawley’s Island and Edisto Island who were also attending the conference. They agreed with the Blue Ribbon committee and felt that there needed to be a committee formed as well that would address the issues of each island in a forum composed of the leaders of each barrier island and all coastal towns. “Education of these issues is important,” agreed Mayor Sottile, encouraging the formation of a barrier island committee.
     By the conclusion of the all-day conference, the general consensus was yes, we have a problem. Yes, we are doing what we can in terms of research to fix it. But there will always be the issue of resources, of time and of money. The DeeDee Paschal Barrier Island Trust will do what it can, but it needs the support of the towns and cities of our coast and we all need for the leaders of these communities to come together and start working from the same page. By communicating with each other and helping each other, the coastal and barrier island communities can make far greater leaps toward protecting their fragile ecosystems than they ever could alone. With the final notes of the conference ending on this hope for a more communicative future, it hopefully won’t be long before the coast of South Carolina becomes one united front in support of a shifting environment, but with the resources and know how to keep it from affecting residents and tourism alike.

For more information on the DeeDee Paschal Barrier Island Trust and to see a more in-depth overview of the conference, please visit www.barrierislandtrust.org or call 696-7727.

Save time, lose weight; ride a bike!
By Azumi Nishikawa

For recreation, for exercising and for transportation, bicycles are one of the best all-in-one multi-purpose machines. I know, in fact, because I ride my bike everywhere, especially during my daily commute from Mount Pleasant to Sullivan ’ s Island. But even though bike riding is an every day occurrence for me, it’s important for all of us to appreciate this non-polluting and healthy form of transportation.
      That’s why the League of American Bicyclists worked to create and promote National Bike Month in May and established Bike-to-Work Week ( May 14 - 18) and Bike-to-Work Day (May 18) each year. I know I would like many more people to join me and help the environment while at the same time getting a little exercise. Besides celebrating National Bike Month, there are many reasons why people should dust off their banana seats and join the rank of the two-wheelers:
      First, riding a bike can help you stay in shape because it requires using all of your muscles and it burn s calories at a rapid rate . Some people enjoy riding a bike more than jogging as their exercise because it is easier on the knees.
      Riding a bike is also good for the environment because it doesn’t use gasoline and doesn’t produce motor exhaust. It’s much cheaper, too. In fact, riding a bike will save you around $3,000 a year just in gas, let alone insurance and car payments.
      In addition, bikes can be very useful for transportation and it also saves a lot of time. I don ’ t have to worry about going to the gym to work out because riding a bike at least 30 minutes everyday can burn over 400 calories at a time.
      Riding a bike is fun and useful, and you can feel good about it. However, we also have to think; “ Is it safe? ”
      When I ride a bike, I realize different things on the road. For example, the speed limit for crossing the Ben Sawyer Bridge is 50 mph . It doesn ’ t seem very fast when you are driving a car, but when you are pushing or riding a bike on the bridge, it can be very dangerous. The bridge itself is narrow and the bike lane is more of a suggestion than an actual sidewalk .
      The bridge is not the only frightening place to ride. Every year, between 700 and 800 cyclists are killed in America. In South Carolina, 24 cyclists were killed in 2001, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report. That makes the possibility of getting hit by a car while on your bike a 5.91 chance in a million, the second worst death rate in the United States after Florida.
      After riding a bike so long, I realized that most roads are not designed for bikes and found out later that only about 50 percent of the population is satisfied with their community ’ s design for riding a bike, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The biggest problem is that most roads don’t have bike lanes. Sometimes there is one, but its only on one side of the road. It’s not polite for the cyclist to ride in the pedestrian lane and hit a pedestrian, but it is also not fun to share a road with cars and get hit by a car.
      What should we do? Stop riding a bike? But then we’ll miss all the healthy, environmentally friendly results of riding a bike . What can we do?
      The best solution is wear a helmet, take safety classes and be careful. However, we still need better roads for bikes. The League of American Bicyclists Bike Advocacy Center advise s cyclists to contact their governor and State Highway Officials. We need the government to see that this is a problem . If you don ’ t know where to start, you can go to the League of American Bicyclists ’ website at www.bikeleague.org. They have a form you can fill out, petitioning the government for safer roads and also check up on all the latest information about bikes.
      This is a “ low country”; we have a lot of flat spaces . South Carolina has the potential to be one of the best bike-friendly communities in the United States.
      Hopefully we ’ ll have a better road for bikes soon, and I hope to see all of you soon, out on the road, riding your bikes.