While winning a battle is good, it may have a direct impact on local economies that are experiencing record, high unemployment numbers.  Environmentalists will hear that it’s our fault folks are without work.  I think everyone would agree that jobs are needed, but should they come at any cost?  With each environmental challenge we face, win or lose, the ultimate outcome is knowing that we have educated local and state legislators, general public and each other about the hazards and effects of that particular issue, whether it’s teaching that air emission pollution doesn’t end at the property or state line, or that the point-of-entry water pollution in flowing water doesn’t just float away.

While we won’t have the added mercury from a new coal plant because Santee Cooper withdrew its air permit, we do have other heavy polluting industries wanting to come into South Carolina.  Johnson Controls, an environmentally friendly company (as it describes itself on the company web site), wants to build a battery recycling center just off the Great Pee Dee River.   Notice was received on February 5, 2010 that DHEC has approved the air permit, which will allow up to seven tons of lead, four-hundred pounds of arsenic, and twelve pounds of mercury to be emitted annually.  The second permit, a hazardous waste storage permit, RCRA part B application is complete and can be reviewed on the DHEC website.  In Chester County, a trash incinerator company, Covanta, is proposing to build a plant.  The company boasts about being a green company, but many studies suggest that burning garbage produces poisonous air emissions, with toxic levels of arsenic, cadmium, chromium and plenty of mercury, as well as toxic ash which must be managed for a long, long time to come . . . This facility would bring garbage from other states to South Carolina.  Again, groups are coming together to determine steps to take with these polluting companies.