Tag: SCDHEC

H. C. Solid Waste Authority Pledges County General Fund for Closure and Post-Closure Costs

Horry County Council will vote tonight on third and final reading for next fiscal year’s budget, which begins July 1, 2024.
The general fund of the budget, approximately $270 million, pays for most of the goods and services provided by county government. Approximately 70% of the general fund pays for public safety services.
The SWA is a component unit of Horry County Government established by county ordinance 60-90. Its budget is included in the annual budget for the county and receives final approval from county council. The SWA bylaws and other rules must be approved by county council. SWA board members must be approved by county council.
When the SWA was created, it was specifically mandated by council, in Ordinance 60-90, to find alternative means of disposing county garbage rather than maintaining an ever-increasing landfill next to Sterritt Swamp. Instead, the SWA has done the exact opposite, continually expanding the landfill area in what is identified as an environmentally sensitive area in Ord. 60-90.

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Horry County Council Needs Serious Study of New Solid Waste Management Plan

Horry County Council will hold a workshop Thursday on the new Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) being proposed by the Horry County Solid Waste Authority (SWA).

The new plan includes a proposed further expansion of the landfill on Hwy 90 in addition to an already approved expansion that, according to previous projections, was supposed to be accepting waste in 2017 but has not been constructed or needed yet.

Since its creation by Horry County Ordinance 60-90, the SWA has been tasked, “There is a need in Horry County to develop an acceptable alternative method of solid waste disposal and to reduce tonnage of solid waste disposal in sanitary landfills due to the County’s high water table and other geologic characteristics that make utilization and expansion of the existing landfills and development of new landfills especially expensive and difficult.”

Throughout its nearly 30 year existence, the SWA has failed to live up to this task. The latest proposed SWMP clearly demonstrates this failure by planning an expansion on top of an already approved expansion of landfill facilities.

The SWA staff and board members have been pushing for approval of the new SWMP since October 2018 so the authority can go forward to the S. C. Department of Health and Environmental Control with an application for a permit for the newly proposed expansion.

But, rushing approval through council so application can be made to DHEC for approval of a second landfill expansion when one expansion is already approved but not begun seems questionable.

The burying of solid waste is expensive. It becomes even more expensive when proposed expansions are built on top of former landfills which are already closed, which is the basic plan in the approved and proposed expansions.

In addition to construction and daily operations, much of the expense associated with a landfill is the cost requirements of both the state and federal governments to properly close exhausted landfills (closure costs) and to monitor what is happening in the buried waste for 30 years beyond closure (post closure costs).

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County Council to Discuss Solid Waste Management Plan Revision

Horry County Council is scheduled to discuss the latest revision to the Horry County Solid Waste Authority (SWA) Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) during its budget workshop next week.

According to information SWA Director Danny Knight provided to SWA board members recently, approximately 30 minutes has been scheduled for discussion of the SWMP and the county’s budget Fund 6 which provides revenue for the SWA convenience centers throughout the county.

The county’s SWMP needs approval from Horry County Council before it can be submitted to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. The SWA initially requested approval during an October county council regular meeting and council Chairman Mark Lazarus scheduled discussion for the budget workshop to give council members time to study the over 500 page document.

This is a good first step. However, 15-30 minutes during the council workshop is probably not nearly enough time to dig into the details of the proposed SWMP and the inconsistencies that seem to be contained therein.

The SWMP is an important guidance document in that it outlines the plan the county has for the handling of solid waste for the next 20 years. Prior to requesting a permit from DHEC for change or expansion of services, that change or expansion must be included as part of the SWMP.

Included in the current SWMP revision is a large expansion of space for the burying of additional municipal solid waste (MSW) in future years.

This is being planned despite the fact that the SWA has never studied alternatives to burying more and more waste in Horry County as it was charged to do in the county ordinance 60-90 that established the SWA.

According to DHEC reports, there are nine county owned landfills in South Carolina. The SWA buries approximately 99% of the waste generated in Horry County in the SWA landfill on Hwy 90. The average amount of county generated waste buried in the other eight landfills owned by various counties in the state is 35%.

Other than its pride in being called “The Independent Republic”, why do Horry County solid waste management practices diverge so widely from what is considered sufficient in the rest of the state?

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Solid Waste Authority Looking for Further Expansion

The Horry County Solid Waste Authority (SWA) is preparing to request a Determination of Need from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control for permission to further expand capacity at its Highway 90 landfill.

The request, expected to be sent in next month, will begin the process to add a Phase III Piggyback landfill cell for Class 3 Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and expansion of the current Class 2 Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste landfill.

The SWA says it needs this expansion to continue serving the needs of the residents of Horry County for landfill capacity.

Included in the plans for Phase III is a proposed bridge over Sterritt Swamp and a new roadway snaking through wetlands areas on the authority’s 1187 acre tract adjacent to the current landfill site. The bridge and roadways are needed to mine approximately one million square yards of dirt on the 1187 property and haul it to the landfill for construction.

It is only 18 months ago that the SWA was literally begging Horry County Council to approve an increase in tipping fees at the Hwy 90 landfill to keep the authority solvent. The need for the increase in fees was blamed on capital expenditures associated with current Phase II Piggyback Expansion and planned Vertical Expansion for the MSW landfill.

Horry County Council approved an immediate $7 per ton increase in tipping fees for MSW with additional $1 per ton increments for seven more years and a $1 per ton increase for C&D.

The SWA landfill sits in an environmentally sensitive area surrounded by Sterritt Swamp on three sides. Its origin dates back to open, unlined garbage dumps that served the City of Conway since the 1960’s.

As the state was preparing what would become the South Carolina Solid Waste Policy Management Act of 1991, Horry County Council formed the SWA, by county ordinance 60-90, to conform with the new state law.

A hydrology report prepared in 1990 by HDR Engineering stated that no soils in Horry County were listed as fair to good for landfills. The 1990 report and several subsequent through 2001 stated the Hwy 90 landfill site was hydrologically unsuitable for a landfill due to the proximity of Sterritt Swamp.

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No Extortion on International Drive

Horry County Council gave a resounding NO to the possibility of giving any money to The Nature Conservancy for extra mitigation on International Drive.

The new request came up during a meeting between Horry County officials and representatives from the Coastal Conservation League and the SC Wildlife Federation.

Essentially what was asked for was the county to pay The Nature Conservancy approximately $1.6 million so that agency could purchase land to be used ostensibly for wildlife preservation.

Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus ended the meeting after the new demand was made.

Lazarus reported on the International Drive project during the regular council meeting Tuesday night. He said he wasn’t going to give money from the taxpayers of Horry County to a private nonprofit organization so it could buy land.

It is probably not something that could legally be done either. International Drive is one of the projects paid for by the one cent local option sales tax (Ride II).

Ride II was approved by referendum of county voters in 2006. At that time, each project with the anticipated expenses associated with it was listed in the referendum. The county has already paid for the mitigation credits required by the US Army Corps of Engineers and SCDHEC for the project.

To expend extra dollars just to please conservation groups for land that is neither associated with the project nor required for mitigation certainly seems to be in conflict with state law on capital projects sales tax.

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Irony of Myrtle Beach City Council Seismic Testing Vote – Update

When the Myrtle Beach City Council votes on seismic testing in the Atlantic Ocean later today, the result will mean nothing.

The resolution opposing seismic testing will be a statement of the sense of council, if it passes. However, local governments are not part of the decision process.

Local media reports speculate Myrtle Beach City Council is split 4-3 with Mayor John Rhodes, and council members Wayne Gray, Susan Grissom Means and Mike Chestnut opposing seismic testing while council members Randal Wallace, Phil Render and Mike Lowder reportedly support it.

But, it really doesn’t make any difference what Myrtle Beach City Council does.

SCDHEC determines consistency of permit requests with coastal zone management practices. The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issues the permits.

Seismic testing uses loud blasts of sound from airguns to gather data about what oil reserves might be under the ocean floor.

The hoped for result is that seismic testing will prove oil reserves of sufficient size to justify recovery are present under the ocean floor. Those supporting testing see this result as an economic boom for the state.

Opponents of seismic testing, and later drilling, point to the potential harm to sea mammals and the ever present possibility of another Deepwater Horizon oil blowout that devastated the Gulf Coast in April 2010.

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