Written by Jessica Holdman, SC Daily Gazette.
Beidler Forest in the Lowcountry is the largest uncut cypress-tupelo swamp in the world, with some trees that have been growing for more than a millennium, according to Audubon South Carolina.
As South Carolina’s state-owned utility company seeks to upgrade a transmission line powering homes and business in fast-growing Berkeley, Dorchester and Charleston counties, Audubon and other environmental groups are worried about preservation of all the forest’s trees and state-protected species that call the 18,000-acre natural and historic site home.
Santee Cooper wants to increase the capacity on an existing power line that has run through the property since the 1970s and has no plans to cut any old-growth trees, cypress or otherwise, according to spokeswoman Mollie Gore.
Still, Audubon is looking for added guarantees as the project makes its way through the state’s regulatory process.
Audubon purchased and has managed the blackwater swamp and forest since 1969, according to Timothy Evans, the organization’s director of land conservation.
The property had been part of 165,000 acres owned by Santee River Cypress Lumber Company, formed in 1881 by Chicago businessmen Francis Beidler and Benjamin Franklin Ferguson. The company harvested the ancient trees to make shingles and other building materials out of the naturally rot resistant wood.
The company ceased to exist by 1920. Two decades later, its former mill was drowned by South Carolina’s largest New Deal project: the damming of the Santee River to create hydroelectric power.
But in the late ‘60s, Peter Manigault — publisher of what was then The Charleston Evening Post and The News and Courier and a member of the National Audubon Society’s governing board — saw trucks carrying large cypress logs leaving the area called Four Holes Swamp and raised the alarm, Evans said.
Audubon and the Nature Conservancy banded together to raise $1.45 million to save 3,400 acres of the forest, a conservation effort that has expanded more than five-fold in the decades since.
The swamp provides habitat for more than 140 birds and several protected and endangered animal and plant species, including the spotted turtle, the northern long-eared bat, Rafinesque’s big-eared bat, the common ground dove, wood stork and a salamander known as the brown-striped dwarf siren, according to documents filed by Santee Cooper with state regulators.
The swamp is also considered a historic site on the Underground Railroad, serving as a refuge to enslaved people, known as maroons, who ran there to hide as they sought freedom. Memoirs, such as that of James Matthew, tell the story of what swamp life was like.
During the Revolutionary War, the forest was a hideout for colonial soldiers, Evans said, and the ferry crossing at Dean Swamp was the site of a skirmish.
“There are only two uncut, old-growth forests like this in South Carolina,” Evans said.
The other is in Congaree National Park.
“So, we can’t replace this, Evans said. “Whittling away at the edges of this uncut swamp is one thing we can’t stand to allow. This is where we choose to stop.”
Along parts of the 1½ mile stretch of powerline that runs through the forest, the company can down trees within 100 feet of that right of way that it considers a danger to the line.
Gore said Santee Cooper has a process in place for working with property owners before cutting down trees, which would mostly include trees found to be diseased or dead.
But Evans said Audubon is joining in on the regulatory process to try to secure some added guarantees. He said the organization wants Santee Cooper to mark any trees it plans to cut for Audubon to first review. He said the organization also wants to be privy to reasons for the cutting of any trees on its property.
“Simply saying because it’s tall is a little bit arbitrary,” Evans said.
Finally, Audubon wants any tree cutting to be done by hand rather than with large vehicles common to the timber industry. The area where the powerline runs is swampy, and Audobon doesn’t want large vehicles coming in that could stir up sediment and impact water quality, Evans said.
That area is also popular with female spotted turtles, Evans said, as evidenced by a long-term research project being conducted by the state Department of Natural Resources in the swamp. Audobon would like to see equipment kept out of the area during the protected species’ laying season.
The state natural resources agency and the State Historic Preservation Office have been consulted by Santee Cooper on this project, according to documents submitted by the company.
“This is a pretty critical upgrade,” Gore said of the transmission line, pointing to the many new neighborhoods and industrial sites that have risen in the once rural area around Ridgeville.
While not named in Santee Cooper documents, the transmission line stands less than 10 miles from a new Google data center being built in the area, said Taylor Allred of the Coastal Conservation League. Data centers like these are massive energy users and continue to pop up across the state.
“These are policy choices that are driving these upgrade requests,” Allred said. “A small number of large customers are responsible for the need for more power in the state.”
In its application documents, Santee Cooper said it considered just one other possible route for the transmission line, one that would have updated a different existing line that starts near Orangeburg.
That upgrade would have required disturbing more miles of land that doesn’t already contain a power line — but only about 4 1/2 miles more than the proposed route will impact. Allred said he thinks regulators should be presented with more options, one that does not have the potential to impact what he calls one of the most important environmental resources in South Carolina.
“As a state-owned utility, Santee Cooper should carefully consider whether that 1940s right of way validates clearing what has become one of the most beloved parts of state’s natural beauty,” he said. “They have a responsibility to the public interest to re-evaluate whether this what is best for the state.”
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