Restoration leaves ground for plovers
KIAWAH ISLAND - The eroding 18th hole at the vaunted Ocean Course is about
to get more sand, but the threatened piping plover will get to keep enough
to forage on.
That's the compromise dictated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow a
high-profile, controversial beach renourishment that will use sand from the
rare shorebird's habitat.
The federal agency has signed off on a revised plan that cuts in half the
amount of sand that will be removed from a tidal sand spit to restore the
dunes along the beach in front of the course's 18th and 16th holes, as well
as its driving range.
The change leaves three to four times as much ground for the bird as the
original project would have.
The sand spit, like the rest of the island's eastern edge beach, is critical
foraging habitat for the plover, an endangered species in some states and a
threatened species in South Carolina.
The 18th hole is the signature of one of the country's premier golf courses,
the prospective site for two world-class professional golf championships,
the first one next year.
After being reworked closer to the beach three years ago in what was a field
of dunes, the hole is now kept out of the ocean at high tide by only a pile
of sand bulldozed up from the beach.
The tournaments - the 2007 Senior Professional Golf Association championship
and the 2012 PGA Championship, one of professional golf's four major
tournaments that draws an international audience - could be worth a combined
$100 million or more to the local economy.
"It's the best possible project for the birds we could make under the
circumstances," said Melissa Bimbi, of U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
"I think it's a very good compromise.
The consultants say it will bring the beach basically back to what it was.
It's going to work. "It's going to help us out immensely and still protect
the piping plover, the loggerhead turtle and the other animals," said town
biologist Jim Jordan.
The revised plan leaves a "bump" of the sand spit rather than creating an
even beach. But it fills in a tidal creek opened by Hurricane Floyd in 1999
that is causing the rapid erosion, Jordan said. He hopes a shoal of sand
moving onshore will keep restoring the beach, bringing back nearly all of
what was there before the hurricane.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is the federal agency in charge of endangered
species protection and getting a permit for the project hinges on its "
biological opinion." A state permit is expected to be issued this week. The
revised project and any objections must also be reviewed by the Army Corps
of Engineers, expected by the end of the month.
An Audubon South Carolina spokesman said the environmental advocate just
received the opinion and couldn't immediately comment.
Jordan said the town hopes to start work by May 1.
"It's going to be a bit of crunch," he said, getting it finished before the
migrating birds start returning in August.
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