Volume 1 Issue 4

June 15, 2007

National Trails Day Hosted by Bull’s Island
By Mercer Cronemeyer

“The purpose of the refuge is to provide habitat for waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds, and resident species, to provide habitat and management of endangered and threatened species, to provide protection of a Class I Wilderness Area, and to provide environmental education and recreation to the public.”
~U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services

      I must admit, when my alarm sounded last Saturday morning and a single glance out of my window confirmed my worst fear—rain—I was not overly motivated for my planned day-trip to Bull’s Island. Every spare second I had the week before had been dedicated to daydreaming about the beautifully preserved coastline of this island expanse, bathed in sunshine. Still, I grabbed my sweatshirt, a notebook and a pen and hurried off to my coworker’s house at 7:00 AM on Saturday morning, hoping desperately that the sky was not going to collapse over our heads during the ferry ride to the island. Little did I know what the day held in store!
     Swan and I arrived at Garris Landing just as the ferry boat was being prepped for the day’s adventure: a special walking tour was being held on Bull’s Island in honor of National Trail’s Day. All told, there were about seven souls brave enough to chance the stormy forecast. Once we were seated, our guide, Will Smith, introduced us to Captain Chris Crolley and his boat the “Island Cat.” It was at this point that our guided tour truly began. What better entertainment on the 30-minute boat ride than an introduction to the island and the Cape Romain Refuge at large.
     For those of you unfamiliar with the 20-mile stretch of Cape Romain, this national wildlife expanse is composed of 64,000 acres of marshland, unspoiled beaches, maritime forests, nutrient-rich estuaries, and fresh and brackish water impoundments. It has been designated as a Class I wilderness area by the Federal government and has been the longest continuously protected coastline since its purchase by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services in 1936. In other words, this coastline is one of the most pristine designations in the United States and thus boasts some of the cleanest air and water for miles around.
     This might not be the case today had Bull’s Island been settled by the British at the time of their influx into the Charleston Harbor. As it was, however, Bull’s Island was never used for more than a point of restocking for ships on their way to the Charleston Harbor or as a strategic landmark. Ships restocked on the island during the Revolutionary War and later, during the War Between the States and blockade runners utilized the inner tidal creeks. The only true inhabitants of the island until the early 1700’s were the Sewee Indians. Middens or preserved shell mounds from the time of their habitation can still be found on the island. These native people populated the island for approximately 4,000 years, deeming it “fat land” due to its plentiful abundance of shellfish and other marine foodstuffs. Such land-dwellers as the white-tailed deer and wild turkey also made the island a resource-rich location.
     It was thus that the island remained untouched, save for a few cattle and perhaps a rice field or two until the year 1925 when U.S. Senator and investment broker Gayer Dominick purchased the land. Dominick’s plan was to establish a private hunting reserve on the island. Although this never came to pass, Dominick did build a manor house on the island (the Dominick House) and also dug out parts of the island to create fresh and brackish water impoundments, or enclosures that collected rainwater and existed independently of other water sources. Over the years, these man-made enclosures became freshwater ecosystems that continue to support multiple species.
     With such a well-preserved history, it should not come as a surprise, then, that thousands of species call Bull’s Island home. A few of these we were lucky enough to spot on our trip over or on our walking tour. Had it not been for our extremely knowledgeable tour guide, we might have overlooked a good number of them. One of the first species that Will pointed out was the black fox squirrel. He informed us that the fox squirrel was the only species of squirrel found on the island and could be distinguished from other tree squirrels due to its size. He laughingly compared it to a cat. It is, in fact, the largest species of tree squirrel native to North America and can range from 45-70 cm in body length, with a tail length of 20-33 cm.
     Another favorite for all of those familiar with the reptile population is the alligator. Although the total population on the island ranges from 600-800 gators, this year is a dry season. Compounded with an ongoing island waterways program responsible for draining the freshwater from the island’s impoundments back into the marshes, the dry conditions have made it more difficult to spot these scaly creatures. “In fact,” said Will, “this procedure caused a period of intense cannibalism in the alligator population, making their numbers slightly lower over the past year.” Nonetheless, we were able to spot a few lurking in the algae-green woodland ponds.
     As quoted at the beginning of the article, one of the main objectives of the Cape Romain Refuge is “to provide habitat and management of endangered and threatened species.” The island is home to such species as the critically endangered wood stork, the only stork indigenous to the Southeast of North America, the loggerhead sea turtle and was, at one time, home to two red wolves. Personally, I was most impressed by his extensive knowledge of the Carreta carreta, or loggerhead sea turtle.

John’s Island council meeting - June 7, 2007

Charleston County Comprehensive Plan up for review
Megan Desrosiers of the Coastal Conservation League gave a short presentation on the upcoming review of the Charleston County Comprehensive Plan. The Comprehensive Plan, originally adopted in 1999 and updated and adopted in 2003 and 2004, was designed to provide an overall vision for the county's future land use. Megan pointed out that the ten-year Comprehensive Plan update process would begin this July and wanted all of the islands, including John’s, Kiawah and Seabrook Islands, to be fully aware of and participate in the upcoming discussions. “This is our chance to speak up for how we feel the future development of our islands should go,” Megan stated. “We’ve gotten several recommendations from local organizations, including the Concerned Citizens for the Sea Islands and would like your help in putting together further recommendations and refining the current ones.” She proceeded to pass out a list of proposed recommendations for the Comprehensive Plan, specifically concerning John’s Island. The list included such items as:

• Maintain the current Urban Growth Boundary on John’s Island.
• The revised plan shall mention needed transportation improvements along needed road corridors such as River Road, Main Road, Maybank Highway and Bohicket Road in order to accommodate future growth.
• Bike and pedestrian facilities should be required through a Complete Streets Policy.
• Develop a Transfer Development Rights (TDR) program for John’s Island.
• Promote the development of new affordable housing units and maintain the current stock of affordable housing.
• Mention the agreement between St. John’s and Charleston Water and Sewer (CWS) regarding limiting sewer service to only with the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) on John’s Island.

The Council expressed that they wished to create a panel of John’s Island residents who would be interested in reviewing the current comprehensive plan and creating/revising recommendations. Sam Brownlee, council treasurer, stated that he was currently contacting volunteers and hoped to have a meeting by the following week. He agreed to notify all members of the council by phone once the time and place of the meeting were established. He also agreed that the committee would work as closely as possible with the Coastal Conservation League.

The eternal traffic issue
Megan also handed out a packet of letters that had been sent to Charleston County Council chairman Timothy Scott concerning the issue of fixing the roads on John’s Island. “All of the letters basically state that there needs to be an update in the traffic study of John’s Island,” Megan said. “They all point out that the existing traffic problems on John’s Island needed to be handled before we do anything else,” alluding to the projected extension of I-526 onto John’s Island. “It’s a problem when people can’t get out their driveway in the morning or back to their homes in the evening due to the huge amount of traffic,” she stated. Council agreed, pointing out that fixing the roads would not only improve traffic flow, but would also help in future hurricane evacuations.

Green is green
Last but not least, Megan also noted that the Greenbelt Committee, under the local Lowcountry Land Trust, has bought roughly 900 acres of preserved easement off of Bryan’s Dairy Road on John’s Island. The area will not allow public access, but the public will benefit from the preservation of the green space in their community.

Chairman’s report
Chairman Chris Cannon noted a few land development issues that have come up in the past month, including a new development either on or near the old Plantation Pines golf course off River Rd. “They are working very closely with the City,” noted Chairman Cannon. “I dropped by a few days ago and found that they had requested a special exception to remove eight gum trees and 16 grand trees.” The gum trees are fast growers, so Chairman Cannon did not feel that would be much of a problem. With the grand trees, only two were live oaks and two more were laurel oaks. The rest were more common varieties, including the red oak. “They had apparently asked for more and negotiated with the City to this number,” said Chairman Cannon. “After reviewing their request, I felt that there wasn’t going to be too much of a problem with their request for tree removals.”

There were several requests for development brought up at the most recent Charleston County Council meeting. Among the requests, the areas that were located within John’s Island included the following:

• The Buck family on Main Road who wanted to expand on their storage facility have withdrawn their request for the time being.
• 4080 River Road had a request to be “mined”; a term that 90% of the time means that they are putting in a pond and/or selling the dirt.
• A request for lower density on 18 acres off of Brownswood was made. Owner only wants to put in two houses and a pond. “It’s a good problem to have!” quipped Chairman Cannon.
• A request for 3464 Maybank Hwy near the Stanley Drive interesection to be changed from General Office to Commercial Transitional. “This area is already heavily commerical, so it will just be blending in,” Chairman Cannon pointed out.
• 2871 Maybank Hwy has requested a change from Single Family Rural-4 to Commercial. Since the area on three sides of the property is currently Commercial, council did not feel that this should be a problem. The County Planning Commission will be meeting on June 18, however, to discuss allowing the change.

The road to golf
“I know that there are going to be more highway lanes built out to Kiawah and Seabrook, no questions asked,” said Chairman Cannon. “The PGA of America said that the highway situation needed to be fixed before the 2012 tournament or they wouldn’t hold it on Kiawah. The State of South Carolina is definitely not going to let that happen.” He noted that if John’s Island doesn’t speak up before the development happens, however, it is likely that the highways will be built without the Council’s consent. Therefore, Chairman Cannon requested that a panel of Council members from Kiawah, Seabrook and John’s Islands be created to discuss where the new two lane highway will go. “Ideally, we would like about 20 people,” Chairman Cannon said. “Especially people with highway development or engineering experience.” The panel will meet every couple of months for the next three to four years and they need to have a concrete plan by 2009, since the highway will take about three years to build. Chairman Cannon expressed that he would like the first panel meeting to be held by the fall of this year.

Next Council meeting
The next meeting of the John’s Island council was cancelled since it falls very close to the July 4 th holiday. The next meeting will be held on August 2.

For more information on John’s Island Council meetings, please contact Chairman Chris Cannon at 343-5113.

The Kiawah Island Council meeting, which was held June 12, will appear in Volume 1 Issue 5 of the Island Connection on June 29.