An Open Letter on SCDHEC’s Decision to Approve the Filling of Gadsden Creek
Credit: WestEdge “Phased Master Plan” (www.westedgecharleston.com/plan).
Highlighted area/annotations: Friends of Gadsden Creek
Situation
On June 17, 2021, SCDHEC (Department of Health and Environmental Control) made the announcement that they had approved the WestEdge permit to destroy Gadsden Creek, a federally-protected wetland. In 2018, in response to this same permit, SCDNR (Department of Natural Resources) determined that “the filling of natural marsh areas in Gadsden Creek and replacing them with impervious surfaces will likely exacerbate drainage problems and should not be considered a viable option for solving drainage problems in this watershed.”
Those most likely to be impacted by worsened flooding are the low-income families living in Gadsden Green, the predominantly Black, formerly racially-segregated public housing complex next to Gadsden Creek. The developer has plans to build a luxury hotel, high-end apartments, and parking lots on Gadsden Creek. The City of Charleston, which owns Gadsden Creek, will receive tax revenues from the development. No funds to date to improve the living conditions and/or quality of life for Gadsden Green residents has been factored into this project, nor is any affordable housing going to be created. Friends of Gadsden Creek was founded in 2018 to save the creek, and to address the many environmental justice issues at the heart of this situation.
“Nothing For Us Without Us”
In all property-development decisions, we must prioritize human life over profits. Leaders of Dutch Dialogues Charleston employed a justice-based approach as they considered rising sea-level impacts on our beautiful, historic city. They urged us to “consider the mistakes of the past” and offered these solutions: “Don’t develop in low areas! Connect green spaces. Create a collective vision. Never accept solutions that only work. Consider opportunities to improve the ecology so that all can enjoy it more.”
As they considered ways to improve the quality of life for all (while mitigating sea-level rise impacts), they did not forget to include in their recommendations our most socially-vulnerable citizens, many who also live in our most flood-prone neighborhoods, nearly all once-historic saltmarsh ecosystems. They noted that the way we choose to look at the problem determines what we do, reminding us that “design requires compassion”. They urged us to consider ways in which future development in Charleston could be more socially and environmentally just, doing no further harm to the historically marginalized. Public declarations at the Dutch Dialogues included, “Nothing for us without us. If you continue to do dumb things, you’ll be punished”, followed by, “This place [Charleston] is asking you to be more intelligent”.
A Culturally Historic Environmental Commons
It’s imperative for all to hear truths about society from non-dominant perspectives. Before 1940, a thriving African-American community lived in modest homes which they owned along Gadsden Creek on the Westside of Charleston. They lived with the water in ways that sustained and protected their culture and maritime economy. By 1956, a rising tide of so-called Urban Renewal had swept away their property rights. The Black homeowners of Gadsden Green were displaced into a racially-segregated housing project; their beloved salt marsh turned into a City landfill; and the wetland “reclaimed” for commercial development, no longer able to store floodwaters in its soils. Ever resilient, Gadsden Creek has come back, pushing up through the asphalt—teaching us that water will go where it always has.
The Dutch Dialogue Leaders paid special attention to the plight of Gadsden Green residents, decrying the ways in which the near-total destruction of their creek had cut them off from the water around which their culture had always thrived. In their final report, they condemned the WestEdge proposal to fill and pave what remains of Gadsden Creek.
The Dutch Dialogues Team cannot recommend the filling or impairment of Gadsden Creek or its drainage functions, given that most of the recurrent and nuisance flooding—whether from tidal influences or stormwater - on the peninsula occurs where natural creeks were filled. The Creek should be beautified and its functions enhanced.
Credit: Dutch Dialogues Charleston Final Team Report, ratified and approved by unanimous vote of Charleston City Council, January 14, 2020.
Flooding Perils and Why Science Matters
Increased flooding hazards from the proposed development in the surrounding community has been predicted by those who understand flood plain hydrology (See SCDNR opinion above). On June 13, 2021 in a special edition as part of their series, Rising Waters, the Charleston Post and Courier ran an article, “Charleston may update its zoning to account for flooding and sea-level rise”, in which it was claimed that “Charleston’s elected leaders are contemplating whether to overhaul the city’s zoning rules to limit development in flood prone areas and encourage future growth in less-vulnerable parts of the city. The City’s stormwater management director, Matt Fountain, was quoted as stating that flooding situations could be avoided more often if the city’s zoning code was also based around a property’s flood risk”.
Finally, in this same article, there was a recognition from a City Council member that future development should be “based on science and with an eye toward the most important issue of our time”.
There is hardly any more vulnerable and flood-prone area in Charleston than the Gadsden Creek watershed, an ecosystem that is also a federal wetland, trapping in its sediments daily pollutants from cars that run off from the surrounding roads and parking lots. The creek has also been unfairly weaponized as being “toxic”, similar claims made by the developers who have displaced African Americans from their homes on the peninsula since the 1900s with the claim of “blight”[1]. In spite of WestEdge’s long-time claims that Gadsden Creek was polluted and a danger to the community, an environmental study commissioned by the City in 2020 determined that “the surface water quality in Gadsden Creek does not appear to be significantly degraded and is similar to the Ashley River.” Scientists conducting this study noted in the same report that the City must repair the Gadsden Creek edge of the landfill cap it placed on top of the marsh from 1958-1970, a situation that requires immediate rectification.
Environmental Justice
In August of 2019, a group of concerned citizens met at a public hearing, facilitated by SCDHEC at Burke High School Auditorium. At this hearing, it was pointed out that the WestEdge project has made no attempt at conducting a community benefits agreement with Gadsden Green residents, a common environmental justice requirement. There was overwhelming public support from citizens from many walks of life to save the creek and improve the deplorable living conditions in the Gadsden Green community. And now, two years later, SCDHEC has approved the permit to destroy Gadsden Creek, a federally protected wetland, in exchange for the developer improving a wetland in an affluent, majority-White golf course neighborhood in Summerville.
As Charlestonians, we are better than this. There is a critical need for empathy if we are to face the challenges of anti-racism, housing justice, and climate change resilience together. We must use our human capital to develop a force for joy, restoration, and healing in our shared community. Please join us as we seek to prevent yet another tragedy of the commons. Save Gadsden Creek!
[1] For assertion in 1940 from Gadsden Green residents that they are not a slum district: Harris, John A. “Letter to Mayor Lockwood on behalf of Gadsden Green.” March 25, 1940. For scholarship on the post-Hugo eviction of Ansonborough Homes and blight used as justification: Butler, C. (2020). Lowcountry at High Tide: A History of Flooding, Drainage, and Reclamation in Charleston, South Carolina Hardcover. University of SC Press.