The federal government will not insure it. Many Kiawah Island residents don't want it. Environmentalists say it would be harmful and, ultimately, unsuccessful. Kayakers and nature watchers lament that they would lose a favorite recreational spot and that threatened piping plovers and diamond-back terrapins would lose a nesting place. Finally, the DHEC board denied a permit to allow it. But developers still contend they should be able to sink a 340-foot-long steel wall 35 feet in the sand at the fragile southern tip of Kiawah Island. Those opposing this hare-brained plan, which developers hope will allow them to put up to 50 houses on the volatile area known as Captain Sam's Spit, should stand tough. The spit has disappeared underwater at least four times in recorded history, and it might very well disappear again because of storms and everyday erosion. In the 1970s, when the Kuwaitis owned Kiawah, they hired Dr. Miles O. Hayes, a respected seashore geologist, to draw a master plan for the island. It called for developing the interior of the island and leaving the ends untouched. Kiawah has prospered, in part, because the plan has been followed. It has been named one of the country's 10 most beautiful beaches. Dr. Hayes said that developing Captain Sam's Spit would be "ridiculous" because it is "one of the most unstable places on the East Coast." Wild Dunes on the Isle of Palms learned the hard way about putting houses where they shouldn't be. Residents and taxpayers have forked over millions and millions of dollars to address erosion-induced damage. Because the federal government considers the land too fragile to insure, the burden of paying for road repairs on the spit would likely fall on Kiawah's property owners, who have no say over the proposed development. The spit is eroding some seven to nine feet a year on the river side and accreting on the ocean side. A similar spit at Pawleys Island was completely breached during Hurricane Hugo. DHEC's board showed common sense in unanimously reversing its staff's recommendations to allow the wall. Efforts to nail down this volatile spit of oceanfront property would surely come to no good end.

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