Lately, the editorial team of the post and the courier has once again emphasized the urgent question of sewage pattern pollution in our coastal waters, and the work that Mount makes Pleasant in order to encourage homeowners to buy in a new decentile maintenance program.
Although we agree that Mount Pleasants are a step in the right direction, the editorial team paints an incomplete picture of the real effects of sewage pits on our coast and does not fully deal with the real need for better management. A coastal house in a sewage pit house can actually be quite problematic, even if the system is properly maintained.
The combination of existing sewage pitches, especially in large clusters and the deterioration in coastal flooding due to the increase in sea level and the extreme weather, is fatal to the water quality and recreational economy of the lowcountry.
The problems are both with the failure to remedy the abundance of existing sample systems that have led to human waste dirty our waterbooks, as well as the complete failure of initially regulating the locations of these systems.
While Mount Pleasant should be praised for recognizing and trying to recognize the problems with existing sewage pitch systems, it is not enough to encourage homeowners to adequately maintain their systems or use them in sewage pipes. More and better proactive steps are justified if we want to give our waters and life and recreational purposes for marine goods. This responsibility is based on local governments, not only in the state. And with pandemic auxiliary and infrastructure funds is now time to improve the leadership to this problem, which has rightly received a lot of attention, if not a lot of measures.
It must also be recognized on the location side – and finally into politics – that traditional septic is completely inappropriate in some situations. We are completely in agreement that a wider reform of the guidelines for the sewage pit permitted in the coastal zone is required at both local and state level in order to complete the continued threat by the pollution of the sewage pits in our waterways.
An important piece of the puzzle is our work at the SC Environmental Law Project as an environmental law organization for public interests, which is committed in court on behalf of the Charleston Waterkeeper and the Coastal Conservation League in order to have a better state supervision. However, local governments can also have a say in whether and where such systems are allowed, since the local communities are most information about their geographical restrictions and environmental problems such as floods and shellfish.
While our legal case asked the court to arrange the SC Department of Environmental Services to apply the guidelines of the coastal management program when checking all sewage pit permits, we hope that the municipalities will increase and take more proactive steps, such as the city Folly Beach carried out with its maintenance program in the transfer of real estate and Mount Pleasant – and that the general assembly provides appropriate instruments for the Department of Environmental Services in order to approach these critical problems at the state level.
Amy Armstrong Is Executive Director of the SC Environmental Law Project.
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