Across the Southeast and across the country, Waterkeepers serve as vigilant guardians of our waterways—from upland rivers and streams to coastal wetlands and tidal estuaries. These groups promote broad public support for water quality, work with decision makers to advance sound water policies, and patrol our waters to catch polluters.
Throughout our region, SELC is joining forces with Waterkeepers in ways that capitalize on our complementary strengths and capabilities. By combining SELC’s legal skills, policy expertise, and regional perspective with our partners’ grassroots support and thorough knowledge of the ecosystems at stake, we can mount an effective, multipronged attack against abuses of water resources and against state and federal agencies that refuse to enforce environmental safeguards. Here are some examples of our current collaborative projects and recent victories.
Alabama
Coal Mine Pollution―Black Warrior Riverkeeper. We are challenging decisions by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management that give the green light to two proposed strip mines in the Black Warrior River watershed without required pollution abatement plans in hand. One would discharge wastewater into the Black Warrior’s Mulberry Fork just 800 feet upstream from an intake for Birmingham’s drinking water. Another would release muddy runoff and other pollutants from more than 60 outfalls in the watershed of the Locust Fork. SELC has listed the Black Warrior as one of the Southeast’s Top Ten Endangered Places of 2010.
Little Choctawhatchee Reservoir—Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper. In southern Alabama, we are countering pressure to build a 1,500-acre reservoir in the biologically rich and largely pristine watershed of the Choctawhatchee River. The impoundment would devastate 1,120 acres of bottomland hardwood swamps and other wetlands, as well as some 17 miles of streams and habitat for threatened and endangered species.
Georgia
Cypress Lake―Ogeechee Riverkeeper. SELC tightened a legal loophole and strengthened protection of wetland forests with this 2008 federal court victory, which overturned an Army Corps of Engineers determination that 60 acres of cypress and other trees could be harvested from Cypress Lake near Statesboro without a permit. The judge ruled that the project failed to qualify for the silviculture exemption from Clean Water Act protections.
Coastal Wetlands―Ogeechee Riverkeeper. In a 2009 victory that will also help stem abuse of the tree-farming exemption from Clean Water Act protections, SELC won a federal lawsuit against a timber harvesting company that illegally built a road through wetlands along the Ogeechee River and sold it to a landowner not for silviculture purposes but for residential and recreational uses.
Farm Ponds and Amenity Lakes―Altamaha Riverkeeper. We are seeking to prevent developers on the Georgia coast from misusing the farm pond exemption in the Clean Water Act to convert federally protected wetlands into amenity lakes for subdivisions.
Union Island Development―Altamaha Riverkeeper. SELC convinced the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to withdraw a permit for a sewage management system on an eight-acre island targeted for development in the marshlands of McIntosh County. The project could have fueled further development of the state’s fragile marsh hammocks.
North Carolina
PCS Phosphate Mine Expansion―Pamlico-Tar River Foundation. We seek to overturn state approval of a mine expansion through nearly 4,000 acres of wetlands and some five miles of streams near the mouth of the Pamlico River. It would be the largest single destruction of wetlands in North Carolina’s history. In 2009, the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation presented SELC with its Dick Leach Award, which honors the volunteer that contributed most significantly to the goals and programs of the foundation.
Titan America Cement Plant―Cape Fear River Watch and Cape Fear Coastkeeper. A thousand acres of wetlands are targeted for destruction by a massive cement plant and limestone quarry that Titan America wants to build near Wilmington. The plant also would increase mercury levels in the Northeast Cape Fear River, which is already impaired by the dangerous neurotoxin. We are opposing the state’s attempt to fast-track this project by avoiding a legally required environmental review. SELC listed Cape Fear wetlands as one of the Southeast’s Top Ten Endangered Places of 2010.
Interbasin Transfer―Catawba Riverkeeper. As part of a larger effort to reform water management policies in North Carolina and protect natural river systems, we challenged the state’s approval of water transfers from the Catawba and Yadkin rivers to the cities of Concord and Kannapolis in the Rocky River basin near Charlotte. In early 2010, the cities agreed to significantly scale back water transfers from the Catawba in times of drought and to implement stringent water conservation measures. SELC listed the Catawba-Wateree Basin as one of the Southeast’s Top Ten Endangered Places of 2010.
Hog Waste Issues―Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation, Lower Neuse Riverkeeper, and Waterkeeper Alliance. SELC and our Waterkeeper partners have joined forces to prevent hog waste from large feedlots from causing further harm to the Neuse River and its tributaries. In past years, the high concentration of industrial hog operations in the Neuse watershed has been linked to massive fish kills and other problems in the river system.
South Carolina
Freshwater Wetlands―Charleston Waterkeeper (and other partners). We seek to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from exposing nearly 500 acres of wetlands near Charleston to destruction. SELC has listed the state’s freshwater wetlands as one of the Southeast’s Top Ten Endangered Places of 2010.
Virginia
Polluted Runoff Controls―Potomac and Shenandoah Riverkeepers, James River Association. SELC and its Riverkeeper partners seek to address weaknesses in Virginia’s new regulations on discharges of polluted runoff from construction sites, especially discharges to already impaired waters. In a related effort, we are helping to shape state controls now being developed to control runoff from built-over areas after construction is completed.