Dedicated to discussing threats to the Edisto River, the longest free-flowing blackwater river in North America.
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About Edisto Concerns
Edisto Concerns was started as a response to knowledge received in October 2013 about a giant potato farm planning to withdrawal 805 Million Gallons per month from the South Edisto River.
Several individuals notified Friends of the Edisto (FRED), a conservation group dedicated to preserving the Edisto River. FRED was not aware of this planned withdrawal, and immediately filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get details from DHEC. DHEC was forthright in telling us about the application and how it had been approved, and how everything was done according to the letter of the law and following DHEC regulations.
Long story short: FRED sued Walther Farms, the potato growers, to try and stop them from pumping out of the river, and Edisto Concerns took up the cause of raising awareness about the issue.
At first, the issue seemed to be about the Walthers and the whole potato operation, and the large size of the operation, and the small size of the river. Edisto Concerns started hosting trips down the river, including helicopter fly-overs, to try and impress upon people the size of this farm, and our concerns that 805 million gallons per month was too much.
We learned of a second farm site and a second request to withrawal water, another 350 million gallons. A firestorm was raised and hundreds of people started following the Edisto Concerns Facebook page, and within six weeks of starting we had over 3000 followers and contributors.
As we entered the political realm, we began to raise the attention of some very powerful lobbying groups, primarily the S.C. Farm Bureau, who had originally insisted on the Agriculture exemption to the 2010 Surface Water Withrawal and Permitting Act. We began to pick on Farm Bureau for their position, and they responded with an add campaign that depicted all of us as "Radical Extremist Environmental Activists", which got even more people mad at Farm Bureau and further raised awareness of the issues.
Edisto Concerns is an unaffiliated group of concerned citizens. We have a common focus on the protection of the Edisto. We don't turn away radical environmental activists, nor do we turn away country club republicans or mega-farmers. We understand that our water comes from the ground or the river. We understand that the food we eat requires water to grow. We want a strong agricultural community in South Carolina. We believe that working together to appropriately share our water resources will take a lot of hard work, patience, understanding, and compromise.
