HORRY COUNTY, SC (WBTW) – A proposed dry canal to divert flood water from the Waccamaw River is getting another look after it stalled nine years ago because of environmental concerns.
Those findings said a canal could damage the environment in several bodies of water, many around the Little River community. Little River is a seafood community with festivals celebrating blue crab and shrimp.
Shellfishing there could be hurt by the proposed flood reduction diversion canal, which would take flood water from the Waccamaw River to the Little River Inlet. That’s according to a 2009 study by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The study said adding more fresh water into the saltwater inlet could damage populations of the crab and shrimp caught by local fishermen.
One fishermen who goes up and down the Grand Strand isn’t so sure.
“If it provides some relief to people’s homes, keeping them from getting flooded so bad, maybe give the water another path, so long as it’s not just dumping freshwater in there all the time, I don’t see why it’s a bad thing,” said Brad Stone. “It’s already got to come through here anyway.”
The report also said rain or flooding collecting in the canal could become a mosquito habitat. It also said a major hurricane’s storm surge could cause “irreversible effects” if salt water goes up the canal and into the Waccamaw River.
The canal could affect the South Strand too.
Environmentalists fear the canal could divert necessary flood water from the Winyah Bay near Georgetown. That’s because “pulses and purges” of the Waccamaw River can flush out accumulating sediments.
Stone disagrees.
“It’s a lot of freshwater already down there,” he said. “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control did not recommend the canal back in 2009.
Horry County council is now asking the state’s members of Congress to update that study, saying more flooding storms like Hurricane Florence are likely.
