special section: bridging lake marion

7/29/2019 Special section: Bridging Lake Marion

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1800sRailroad trestle built across Santee River

connects Lone Star and Rimini.

April 1939Works Progress Administration begins clearing landfor lakes Marion and Moultrie.

Go to thestate.com to view a slide showof 1940s photos by C.R. Banks, showing the landclearing for the Santee Cooper project.

November 1941Santee River impounded.

February 1942First electricity generated.

April 1968S.C. Legislature creates Orangeburg-Calhoun-Sumter Toll Bridge Authority.

November 1969Wilbur Smith and Associates study for tol l-bridge between Lone Star and Rimini findsrevenue would not support cost.

November 1992James E. Clyburn elected to U.S. House ofRepresentatives.

September 1996Fluor Daniel Consultings study on development ofLake Marion counties mentions need for bridge.

Story byClaudia Smith

Brinson, cbrinson

@thestate.com,

(803) 771-8683

Story editor: Mark Layman

Photographs byGerry

Melendez, gmelendez

@thestate.com,

(803) 771-8420

Designer: Bill Campling

Photo editor:Al Anderson

Art director:Thomas Peyton

Copy editors: Bobby Bryant and

Eleanor Sibal

To order reprints of

photographs in this section, go

tothestate.com and click on

the Photo Reprints link, or call

(800) 390-7269.

Go to thestate.com

and clickthe Crossing aGreat Dividelink for special

features:

Video interviewswith EzekielBodrick, LeRoyHampton andothers involved inthe bridge battle

Photos showingconstruction of theSantee Dam andSpillway

More photosfrom Lone Star,Rimini and theUpper SanteeSwamp.

More onthe pedestrianbridge over S.C.277 that was

almost a dressrehearsal for thefuror over theBriggs-DeLaine-Pearson Connector.

A photographichistory of the lifeand career of Rep.Jim Clyburn.

A comparison ofthe cost of theBriggs-DeLaine-Pearson Connectorwith other bridgesaround the state.

About Crossing a Great Divide

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2 SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2007 | THE STATE, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA | WWW.THESTATE.COM CROSSINGA GREAT DIVIDE

TUNE IN. The States Claudia Smith Brinson andGerry Melendez will discuss the bridge project on a special

edition of ETVs The Big Picture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday

on WRLK-35, cable channel 11. It will be re-broadcast at

7:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. May 27. The companion

radio program, The Big Picture on the Radio will airat 9 a.m. Friday on ETV Radios four news format stations.

CHAPTER1Is the way it was the way it should be? PAGE 3CHAPTER2Getting one bridge may become a lifelong mission for

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn. PAGE 4

CHAPTER3Environmentalists sue, determined to protect one of the

states largest remaining wildlife habitats. PAGE 5

CHAPTER4Farmers J.D. and Martha Shirer like Lone Star the way it

is. Pecan-shipper David K. Summers Jr. wants retirees

and golf courses. PAGE 6

CHAPTER5The S.C. governor, Green Scissors, Friends of the Earth,

the Pig Book: Everyone has something to say. PAGE 7

CHAPTER6Ezekiel Bodrick wants change; he wants a bridge. PAGE 8

CHAPTER7Southern conservation has a problem: The inhabitants of

remaining natural areas often are poor, rural blacks

longing for development. PAGE 9

CHAPTER8Making lakes Marion and Moultrie required what wasthe nations largest-ever land clearing and public worksproject. PAGE 10

CHAPTER9Were here forever, say the brothers of Packs Landing.

Once theres a foot in the door, its over, says Dan

Daniels of Low Falls Landing. PAGE 11

CHAPTER10A bridge would make Sundays better, but what about

fishing and hunting? PAGE 12

CHAPTER11From the moment there was a lake, there was talk ofother bridges. PAGE 13

CHAPTER12Five stories explain Rep. Jim Clyburn. PAGE 14

CHAPTER13The wildlife of the Santee Swamp. PAGE 15

CHAPTER14These women dont want a bridge, and they dont want

industry, so theyve started a petition. PAGE 16

CHAPTER15Whites and blacks accuse e ach other of bringi ng race into

the conversation. PAGE 17

CHAPTER16A documentary filmmaker asks about promises. PAGE 18

CHAPTER17A cacophony of competi ng interests or a c ollective

dream? PAGE 19

What youll find

TIMELINE | A PATH TO A BRIDGE

BRIDGE BATTLE | ENVIRONMENT VS. DEVELOPMENT

Buildingthe special

section

C.R. BANKS

October 1997Clyburn decides to pursue a Calhoun-Clarendon

Causeway, connecting Lone Star and Rimini.

June 1998First federal funding for project is $6.5 millionfrom Transportation Equity Act for the 21stCentury.

February 2003Final environmental impact statement by S.C.Department of Transportation approves project.

March 2003DOT approves Briggs-DeLaine-Pearson Connectoras name, honoring Summerton families involvedin Briggs v. Elliott, a school desegregationlawsuit.

June 2003Federal Highway Administration gives OK.

September 2005

S.C. Wildlife, Coastal Conservation League andAudubon South Carolina sue DOT and FederalHighway Administration to stop bridge.

November 2006Democrats win control of Congress, elect Clyburnmajority whip.

January 2007S.C. Department of Health and EnvironmentalControl denies water quality permit needed byDOT.

May 2007DOT appeals inclusion in lawsuit.

Sumter

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oad

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Santee

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SanteeState Park

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DETAILED

AREA

LoneStar

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ProposedRimini to Lone

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LakeMarion

ONLINE


3/19

In rural South Carolina,

memory is long, many

generations long. And often

unforgiving.

Ezekiel Bodrick, tall and strong and 83,crushes beer cans with a heavy stick. Awashtub full of silvery crumpled aluminumsits beside his Last Stop ConvenienceStore, across the railroad tracks from theghost town that once was Lone Star.

A few bought up all the land and keepit; thats not progress, he says and stops totake off his brown narrow-brimmed hat.Times change, but some who dont go

nowhere and see nothing wouldnt know.The old ones are still killing themselvestrying to hold everybody else down.

Bodrick is black and a landowner. Heand four of his brothers and sisters, a childand a grandchild live in the 6thCongressional District, represented by JimClyburn. Its a district divided by LakeMarion and a seven-decades-longconversation about a bridge.

The plan to build a bridge across UpperSantee Swamp is of keen interest toBodrick. The road on the Lone Star sidewould slide by his family tract.

In the particular a swamp, a bridge, acongressman can be found the universal who we are and what place means to us.

Its just a bridge, at this stage animagined bridge, the Briggs-DeLaine-Pearson Connector. But this idea of abridge sags under the weight of questionsabout race and class and power, aboutfairness, about progress, whatever that is.

When Clyburn decided he wanted a

bridge and the governor andenvironmentalists decided they didnt another civil war was under way. Theclassic rubs and graces old grudges,selfish dreams; love of place, hope ofbetterment are engaged.

Since 1939, when construction began ondams to tame the Santee River andgenerate electricity, talk of a bridgebetween Lone Star and Rimini has troubledthe waters. Studies on adding a bridgecropped up in the 1950s, 60s and 90s.

This decade has brought dismay overthe escalating cost, now $150 million;mocking comments that a bridge linkingtiny Lone Star and Rimini would go fromnowhere to nowhere; a lawsuit to stop thebridge; a feud between a governor and acongressman; a documentary film; a permitdenial and a frequently reiterated vowby one of Congress most powerful menthat a bridge will be built, no matter what.

But to Bodrick, all thats just static.Clyburns bridge and roads mean jobs,

more neighbors, a better future.

Bodrick wants the bridge; he wantschange.

In rural South Carolina, ties to land last;family businesses pass from generation togeneration. What happens to one affects all.

David K. Summers Jr. sits behind a bigdesk in his office at Camerons GoldenKernel Pecan Co. He and brother Bill tookon the family shelling and shippingbusiness in the 1960s.

White-haired and portly, Summerscombines a benevolent smile and a cannymind. Nearly three decades on CalhounCounty Council have earned him themoniker King David. He complains of therambling route between Orangeburg andSumter, blaming politics for the lack of amore direct course and for the 1950 carwreck that killed his father.

Summers, 66, is white and well-off. Hewants the Connector; he wants the road his

father couldnt travel. To Summers, thebridge and its roads mean convenience,

development and a chance to redeem a loss.

In rural South Carolina, conversationsare seldom about just the present moment.Theres the shimmer of centuries when wetalk about social or economic or politicalissues, about whether the way it was is theway it still should be.

J.D. Shirer is farmer-tan, his cap sun-bleached, his sense of irony well-honed ashis truck bumps past his just-picked LoneStar cotton fields.

Theyve already been across my field,putting in stakes, he says of an effort tomark the proposed Connectors route. Iasked, Who gave you permission to be inmy field? Then I asked, What will you dowhen I pull the stakes up? I cant farm withthe stakes. And the guy laughed and said,Thats my job security.

And Shirer laughs. To him, this is an oldstory. After all, he says, his father was ahighway commissioner in the 1950s, and astudy then concluded that existingcrossings, one near Congaree Swamp atU.S. 601, and one near Santee at U.S. 301,were the two places to cross water.

Shirers grandfather and father anduncles farmed. His brother, son andcousins farm. The family members farmShirer land or Stoudemire land or Zeaglerland theyre all related by blood andmarriage and mean to keep passing itdown, keep farming.

They would be coming in and takingaway from us whats family-owned. Theywant to do something for other people anddisrupt our lives, says wife MarthaShirer, whose grandmother was aStoudemire, whose brother is married toher husbands first cousin.

The Shirers are white, in their 60s. Theydont want the Connector slicing up theirfields. Weve been here all our lives, andwe like it the way it is: quiet, says Shirer.

To the Shirers, the bridge and roadsmean disruption, land divided, land lost.

In rural South Carolina, poverty isfamiliar. So is beauty. The 6th Districtcontains five of the states six poorestcounties. It also contains CongareeNational Park, Lake Marion, LakeMoultrie, Francis Marion National Forest,The Great Swamp Sanctuary.

Guaranteed then: A clash between thosewho want to develop and those who wantto preserve.

Angela Viney, dark-haired and intense,a West Virginia coal miners daughter, ranthe S.C. Wildlife Federation from 1976 to2006. She talks of visiting the Upper SanteeSwamp, which the proposed Connectorwould cross, and promising herself nothingwould be harmed and those fishing on thebanks would remain.

The Wildlife Federation has opposed theConnector since 2000, when the S.C.Department of Transportation released afeasibility study. At a meeting ofconservationists and sportsmen, Everybodyexpressed concern over losing an area that isa pristine wildlife habitat with recreationalhunting and fishing, says Viney.

To her, the bridge and roads representdisregard for plants, animals, rare places.To her, this seems willful destruction.

In September 2006, three environmentalorganizations sued in federal court to stopthe bridge. But thats just the latest in along story getting longer.

And those for and those against look to

Clyburn.

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Dawn on Packs Lake is quiet and colorful. Boating as the day begins offers the sense the world belongs to hawks, ibis, cormorants and fishes.

At 17, Ezekiel Bodrick ran away to North Carolina and a paycheck. My room,food and water cost $5, I sent Daddy $5, and I kept $5. When I came home he

was the most happiest man I ever seen. I had some money, and he had some.

Down to the riverCHA

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WWW.THES TATE.COM | THE STATE, COLUMB IA, SOUTH CAROLI NA | SUNDA Y, MAY 20, 20 07 3CROSSINGA GREAT DIVIDE

This idea of a bridge sags underthe weight of questions about race and class

and power, about fairness, about progress.


4/19

Young Jim Clyburn

pedaled his bicycle past pine

trees and cotton fields, past

concrete-block stores and

prim white churches, from

Sumter to Pinewood and the

shores of Lake Marion.

His minister father preached do-it-yourself messages. His beautician motherattended college while her childrenattended elementary school.

He played the clarinet and dreamed ofa musicians life.

We are but the sum total of ourexperiences, he says.

The Ku Klux Klan beat a white banddirector for teaching black students at hisCamden school. A white man kicked hisfather for daring to ask directions.

He marched for civil rights and wasarrested. He marched for civil rights andmet his wife, Emily England. He taughthistory in Charleston; he directed youthand migrant-worker programs. He ran forpublic office and was defeated, three times.

He is the sum total of such experiences.And that is why, he explains, he walks

government halls, stands in conventioncenters, sits in conference rooms withpeople who see the world one way, a wayentirely different from his way yetkeeps on working: They dont have myexperiences, he says.

If you think the question of a bridgeacross Lake Marion will go away, youdont know Jim Clyburn. If you think apermit denial or a lawsuit, hostility orracist attacks will stop him, you dontknow Jim Clyburn.

In the scope of things which is thelarge and needy 6th Congressional Districtin the 21st century one bridge doesnt

seem much to get or to give up. But if youthink that, you dont know the eight-termlegislator, the majority whip for the 110thCongress, the third most powerfulDemocrat in the U.S. House ofRepresentatives.

Hes a man with a mission. Words likevision, mission and purpose pepperhis speech, but the preachers sonsometimes names it more dramatically: adivine calling.

So he persists. Ten years ago, hewanted a federal courthouse named afterMatthew J. Perry Jr., a civil rights lawyerand the states first black federal judge.Clyburn went up against U.S. Sen. StromThurmond, who thought the Columbiacourthouse should be an annex of theStrom Thurmond Federal Building,repeating his name.

Clyburn won. U.S. District Judge Perrypresides in an elegant columnedcourthouse downtown named the MatthewJ. Perry Jr. United States Courthouse.

I was told I couldnt do it, Clyburn

said at the time. Then I was told I wouldnever get it through the Senate. Then Iwas told I would never get it built in mylifetime.

But that would be underestimatingClyburn or the strength he finds in acalling.

Retired U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings saysClyburn has long been the man to seewhen hunting votes. U.S. Sen. HillaryClinton, on the campaign trail, mentionshis leading the Faith Working Group forthe House Democrats and suggests one

day he will write his own Book of James.

Judge Richard Fields, 75 and retiredfrom state circuit court, remembersadvising a young Clyburn: You know thestory of the house of straw. You huff andpuff and huff and puff and blow it down.

So they build a house of brick. Youhuff and puff and huff and puff and huffand puff, and you cant blow it down.

You got to get inside. You cantchange things from outside no matter howwell-meaning you may be.

Fields loves this story, as he should,because Clyburn is indeed in the House,

as in U.S. and a capital H.

There, Clyburn is known for his abilityto negotiate, to count and collect votes, tosustain relationships, to suppress ego forgoal. He is known for power.

Here, among African-Americans, he isknown for breaking through first blackman on a governors staff, first blackSouth Carolinian in Congress sinceReconstruction.

Here, among many whites, hes knownfor a bridge. Not for his doggedness, hisambition, his power, but for a bridge andits price tag.

Hes getting impatient with all that.

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If you think the question of a bridge acrossLake Marion will go away, you dont know Jim Clyburn.

If you think a permit denial or a lawsuit, hostility or racist attacks

will stop him, you dont know Jim Clyburn.

I predict at some point in the future, theres going to be a bridge across Lake Marion. Thats going to happen,says U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn. Its not that people resent the vision, they resent the fact I have a vision.

The total of his experiencesCHAP

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S.C. State alumnus Jim Clyburn garnered worldwide attention for the historically black college when the first Democraticdebate of the presidential race was held there in April. From left, John Edwards, Clyburn, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich.


5/19

You might say Jim

Clyburn is a force of nature

going up against thedefenders of nature.

His proposed bridge would cross theUpper Santee Swamp, traveling parallelto a railroad trestle.

Swamp sunflowers bloom brightyellow. From the many hues of springleaves, a great blue heron flies up theSantee River. In the Upper SanteeSwamp, more great blue herons cross thewater than do boats on a sunny afternoon.

The quiet men fishing in the shadecompete with anhingas, ospreys andcormorants. On slender tree branches,the cormorants spread dark glossy wingsto dry after diving for food. Look closelyat waters edge and anhingas areswimming, their snaky heads weaving.

Farther up , into Sparkleberry Swamp,theres just the water and the sawgrassand the woods, the fish and the gatorsand the silence.

The thing that bugs me is we dontrecognize this jewel as a national resource,says Jane Lareau, land-use director with theS.C. Coastal Conservation League.

We go to Georgia for the Okefenokee;we go to Florida for the Everglades. Whyarent we going to South Carolina forSparkleberry?

Thats not all thats buggingenvironmentalists. In 2006, the League,Audubon South Carolina and the S.C.Wildlife Federation sued the S.C.Department of Transportation and the

Federal Highway Administration.The lawsuit contends, The proposed

connector would degrade and destroysignificant natural resources in one of thelargest remaining wildlife habitats inSouth Carolina while serving nodemonstrated transportation purpose.

J. Blanding Holman says, You dontpave paradise and put up a parking lot.Holman, the environmental groupsattorney, is with the Chapel Hill office ofthe Southern Environmental Law Centers.

If the point is an attractive place

where people want to come, and part ofthe value is remoteness, you defeat it byhaving a road.

Theres a paradox, he adds, citinghis interpretation of Clyburns stance:Well build a bridge, and it will lead toeconomic development, but we wont hurtthe area because the bridge wont havethat much traffic.

The lawsuit does have another agenda. Itis as much about challenging the practicesof DOT as opposing a bridge. The lawsuitargues DOTs required environmental-

impact study was deficient because it didnot properly address the Connectorsimpact or alternatives to it.The lawsuit alsosays DOT ignored its own conclusion thatuse would be low and reduce Orangeburgto Sumter travel time by just minutes.

David Farren, another attorney withthe center, calls the Connector a pork-barrel project looking for a purpose.

The bridge construction will ruinhabitat; the bridges existence will pollutewater with runoff and trash, interfere withanimals travel patterns and rob the swamp

of its silence, say the SELC attorneys.And for what? asks the lawsuit,

pointing to the DOT forecast of limited use.Of course, all this means those suing

struggle with a paradox, too: A bridgewill harm the environment, although itwont be used.

First and foremost, we come at thisfrom a fiscal point of view, says NormBrunswig, executive director of AudubonSouth Carolina. We think its a huge wasteof money to build a bridge with nomeasurable, predictable benefit to anybody.

Starting from that point, you cantjustify any loss of habitat.

Environmentalists and the mediacannot resist the word pristine whendescribing the area the bridge will cross,the Upper Santee Swamp.

Little is pristine, as in pure, anywhereanymore, which is their point.

However, Lake Marion is man-made.The woods are second-growth, cut for

timber in the early 1900s. The SanteeRiver is dammed, limiting fish migration.From 1977 to 2000, a hazardous-wastelandfill last owned by Safety-Kleenoperated near Pinewood, just 1,200 feetfrom the lakes shore.

And 20 miles from Rimini, the pilots ofShaw Air Force Base use the PoinsettElectronic Combat Range, 12,520 acresalong S.C. 261, for bombing practice.

No, the swamp is not untouched. But ithas had 64 years to recover from thedramatic rearrangement of the landscapeas Lake Marion, Lake Moultrie and theirdams were created to provide jobs tohungry South Carolinians and, ultimately,electricity to those without. Even a pauseat a paved landing reveals beauty andvalue: geographic, social, spiritual.

The environmentalists are sure this isan area worth fighting for. They are sure,too, that few such areas remain in SouthCarolina. And they are sure Clyburn isnot a guy to make angry.

But he is angry.That brings on anxiety because

Clyburn is labeled a friend of theenvironment, regularly ranking high onannual scorecards of the League ofConservation Voters, the political voiceof the environmental and conservationcommunity.

Early in the battle, calls came fromenvironmentalists in other states, askingwhat the heck was going on? Why makeClyburn mad? Nail-biting increases asClyburns political power grows.

Behind the scenes, activists sayClyburn was put-out from the get-go thathis pro-environment stances didnt earnhim a pass on the proposed Connector.

Many activists are outraged, or hurt,that Clyburn says their opposition isracist, that they want to keep black peoplepoor and helpless. Its an accusation thatunnerves them. They want to be the goodguys, not the bad guys.

Says Lareau: Hes lost his mind on

the subject.

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Early mornings in May the sky and water seem to merge as the swamp warms and awakens near Low Falls Landing.

Used to be you could catch bream most anywhere, says Louis Sam Elliott of Elliotts Landing. Now there arent as

many fish because of the big catfish. About 50 pounds is the biggest Ive ever caught. Ive seen them 80 pounds.

Paradise and paradoxCHAP

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WWW.THES TATE.COM | THE ST ATE, COLUMB IA, S OUTH CAROLI NA | SUNDAY , MAY 20, 20 07 5CROSSINGA GREAT DIVIDE

Early in the battle, calls came from environmentalistsin other states, asking what the heck was going on? Why makeClyburn mad? Nail-biting increases as Clyburns political power grows.


6/19

Love of land may spring

from family ties to place,

from attachment to beauty,

from gratitude for its

usefulness or from dreams

of its potential.

J.D. Shirer and David K. Summers Jr.see their homeplaces and their futuresdifferently and so they see the bridgedifferently.

Shirers 250 acres stretch beside whatwas Lone Stars downtown, toward whatwas the powerful Santee River.Downtown is ghostly, the river is tamed,but Shirers still hand down and farm land.

The Briggs-DeLaine-PearsonConnector would cut through land Shirerleases to a nursery, then his farmland andthe center pivot of his irrigation system,penning his brick home within a triangleof roads.

Shirers have been cutting trees andplanting crops at Lone Star for at least fourgenerations. J.D. Shirers grandfather,William Perry Shirer, logged and farmedland at and near Low Falls Landing. Aftertwo children died of malaria, he moved hishome five miles away from the water toescape the mosquitoes.

He bought up cotton in the 1920s,stashing it in Augusta, Ga. When cottonprices crashed, he lost the cotton andthe land. J.D.s father, Jesse D. Shirer,bought the land back, acre by acre. Heowned a livery stable, a saw mill and acotton gin and logged the Upper SanteeSwamp, as had Shirers grandfather.

They used to run barges fromBuckingham Landing to ship stuff toCharleston, says J.D. Shirer. That endedwhen the S.C. Public Service Authority,better known as Santee Cooper, boughtand cleared land for the lakes.

I say they took the land, says Shirer,64. They lease land or sell it now and geta big price. I dont see where thats right.

Shirer doesnt find Clyburns bridgeplans right, either. He says heconfronted Clyburn at Lone Star and inWashington, telling him, If you wantyour name on something, put a plaque onthe railroad trestle.

Wife Martha Carson Shirer says: Mydaddy had land that was his daddys.When granddaddy died, his land wasdivided among the children.

It goes back. Everyone around herehas been here. Sometimes, if someonewants to buy an acre of land, it disturbsus. They wont hold onto it like we dobecause its sentimental.

We would like to hold onto what wehave and keep it like we have it.

While the Shirers kin and farmingneighbors share that view, minutes backdown S.C. 33, in Cameron, another whitelandowner sees change coming andapproves.

Oldest Buyer and Shipper in theCarolinas boasts the sign over GoldenKernel Pecan Co., its country-store facade

adorned with railings and rockers, itsshelves inside holding pecans and morepecans: in tins, tubs, boxes; orange-frosted, butter-roasted, honey-roasted,chocolate-covered.

David K. Summers Jr. and brother BillSummers run the store and shellingplant, with the help of Davids wife,daughter and son-in-law. Home for thebrothers is right across S.C. 33 Bill inthe family house, whose front roomsserved as an office for a physiciangrandfather, David next door in animposing Georgian colonial.

Dr. S.J. Summers, their grandfather,was the states first to plant pecanseedlings on a commercial scale. David K.Summers, their father, was the statesfirst to start a shelling plant in theCarolinas. He died young and in thatdeath is a story to come and the sonstook over in the 60s.

David K. Summers Jr., in his 28th yearon Calhoun County Council, wants theBriggs-Delaine-Pearson Connector. A

crafty politician, hes paying attention,and he expects more Lake Marionresidents, particularly retirees.

He cites access to hospitals Orangeburgs Regional Medical Center ofOrangeburg and Calhoun Counties on oneside of Lake Marion, Sumters TuomeyRegional Medical Center on the other, andfarther on, Columbias hospitals.

He cites access to Shaw Air ForceBase in Sumter.

He foresees increased golfing, huntingand fishing.

You could call this Summers second-wind theory. From the 1950s on, littletowns dried up as their residents movedto magnet cities and jobs. But, at thiscenturys start, retirees are returning.

Those with good incomes are buyingsecond homes and may prefer a lake tothe crowded and costly beach. Floridahalfbacks, escaping the high cost ofliving and hurricanes, are moving halfwayback north, to Georgia and the Carolinas.

The lake area is getting ready to pop,

says Summers. If you put in a bridge, itslike a racetrack around the water.

In South Carolina, right now alwaysincludes back then, and for Summers,back then includes his fathers 1950death and another reason to support theConnector.

He had a check on a bank fromGeorgia, and they wanted to charge him alarge fee to cash the check, Summersrecounts. He did business with a Sumterbank, and thought, I can go over thereand theyll cash it.

He did, and it cost him his life. His1949 Mercury was hit by a tractor-trailer;he was thrown out, his neck broken. Hebent the steering wheel, trying to holdon, says Summers.

I was a little young fella. I heard thentalk about the U.S. 301 bridge wassupposed to come in here, cross LoneStar and Rimini and go to Orangeburg.Its a straight shot, Orangeburg toFlorence, but politics got into it and keptit from going that way.

Summers repeats a conversation withJames Cuttino Jr. before the Sumter staterepresentatives death. Cuttinoreminisced about his 1960s efforts to geta bridge, a bridge that would have cost$4 million, says Summers, who lingerson that sum, which seems small now.

This time, Summers believes it willhappen; hes betting on Clyburn. He saysenvironmentalists erred in opposing theirally. Those tree-huggers, Clyburn wasthe only friend they had, he says. Youbeat up a guy in public, hell show youwho walks the dog.

S6 010107 USE THIS C MYK

Hunters, fishers, its not going to affect them one bit, David K. Summers Jr. says of a bridge. The people raising sand, theyre commuting to Richland County, theyre the ones with jobs.

Everybody around here has been here forever, say farmers Martha and J.D. Shirer, and a new bridge and roads wonthelp them. The only thing that would thrive would be drugs and crime.

My granddaddys landCHAP

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The lake area is getting readyto pop. If you put in a bridge, its like a

racetrack around the water.


7/19

Whos in charge? Maybe

that explains whats going

on between Rep. Jim

Clyburn and Gov. Mark

Sanford, who opposes the

bridge, as do some other

powerful Republicans and

conservative organizations.

In March 2003, Sanford challengedClyburn and his proposed Connector byasking the U.S. Department ofTransportation for a cost-benefit study.Also reques ting the analysis we re U.S.Reps. Lindsey Graham, Joe Wilson, JimDeMint and Gresham Barrett, all

Republicans.In May 2003, the proposed Connector

made the Green Scissors report, anannual effort by three advocacy groups:Taxpayers for Common Sense, Friendsof the Earth and the U.S. Public InterestResearch Group. The Connector wasone of 10 road and highway projectssingled out for a huge price tag anddevastating environmental cost.

In November 2003, NBC visited for aFleecing of America segment. Areporter described Sparkleberry Swampas a sacred wetland and saidaccusations of out-and-out racism andpork-barrel politics over a road projecthave shattered the quiet calm.

In June 2004, the report Road toRuin: The 27 Most Wasteful RoadProjects in America was released byTaxpayers for Common Sense andFriends of the Earth. While not in thetop 10, the proposed Connector didmake the longer list of billion-dollar

white elep hants.In May 2005, Sanford paddled

Sparkleberry Swamp with 100supporters, using his Family FitnessChallenge to make a public point. Heinvited Clyburn and state highwaycommissioners, saying, If we build thisbridge, a pristine natural area of ourstate will be gone forever.

In February 2006, the U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers entered the picture.The S.C. Department of Transportationfiled a request to fill three acres ofRimini wetlands. The Corps hasjurisdiction over wetlan ds dredging orfilling or placement of structures overnavigable waters.

The Corps ordinarily receives a letteror two about a dock or parking lotduring its public-comment period. Thistime, it was inundated.

From Michael Reino, twice aRepublican candidate for Clyburns seat,the Corps received a 751-signature

petition opposing the Connector. Jenny

Sanford, wife of the governor, signed.The Corps continues to receive letters

in opposition, 664 so far.In favor? The Corps has 74 letters

and a 1,500-signature petition. Residentsof counties around Lake Marioncollected signatures in 2001 and 2002;Clyburns office assisted and providedthe petition.

In September 2006, the SELC suedDOT and the Federal HighwayAdministrat ion in fed eral court, an effortto stop the Connector and change howthe DOT assesses such projects.

In November 2006, Sanford won asecond term as governor. His campaignWeb site l isted oppos ition to t heConnector among his first-termaccomplishments.

In February, the S.C. Department ofHealth and Environmental Controldenied a water-quality permit becauseinformation from DOT was incomplete.

Construction cant start without the

permit. But Clyburn and his staffdismiss the denial as just part of theprocess.

In fact, Clyburn is not moved by anyof the opposition.

DOT had OKd the project. Its finalenvironmental-impact statement, issuedin February 2003, gave the go-ahead.

Theres a federal green light, too. InJune 200 3, the Fe deral HighwayAdministrat ion ruled in favor of th eConnector.

When Sanfo rd and four m embers ofthe congressional delegation askedNorman Mineta, then transportationsecretary, for a cost-benefit analysis,Clyburn wrote, too, saying, I am suremy Republican colleagues did not intendto single out my district and prioritiesfor disparate treatment. But they have.

Mineta answered: During review of

highway projects under the national

Environmental Policy Act, a cost-benefitanalysis is neither required norgenerally conducted.

Clyburn calls Sanfords behaviorcondescending. In his constituentnewsletter, called Capitol Column, hereacted to the governors swamp tour:From the safety of their kayaks, theywont see the faces of the res identsliving on the shores of Lake Marion. ... Ihave visited their schools and theirhomes. I have attended their familyreunions and fellowshipped in theirchurches. For their sake, I will continuemy efforts ...

As to the Corps cac he of let ters, conoutweighing pro, Clyburn shrugs off theimbalance: Everybody gets all up inarms about people who write letters andsend petitions. I talk to people who walkup to me in church. They will neverwrite a let ter.

Clyburn is convinced that the conceptfor the bridge is environmentally

friendly. He says he asked for a bridgethat will not disturb any wetlandsconnected to the lake.

He also requested other designfactors: a bridge fit not only for vehicles,but for runners and cyclists, because Iwant to m ake this a ttractive to tourist s.And a bridge that con nects t he Palmett oTrail, a cross-state trail of manyconnecting passages, to the S.C.National Heritage Corridor, 240 miles ofhistory, culture and nature, so this is areal connector.

Because Clyburn has been acclaimedas the environmentalists ally perhapsthe only one in the states congressionaldelegation their stance galls him tothe point he questions motives.

The whole opposition to this projectis one big falsehood, he says. There isabsolutely no threat to the environmentwith this project. None. There s nodisturbance. Not one inch will bedisturbed.

When it comes to the permit process

the delays, the denial, the lawsuit Clyburn simply says all this wasexpected; the process must play itselfout. Each no slows an already slower-than-usual process and may alterdesign, but wont end his quest.

The pork-barrel comments come witha serving of irony.

After att ention fro m Green Sc issorsand Road to Ruin, the Connector madean appearance in a 2005 issue brief fromCitizens Against Government Waste.

Private, nonpartisan and nonprofit,CAGW is known for its CongressionalPig Book. The annual publication listspork-barrel projects in the federalbudget that fit its criteria, whichinclude not requested by the presidentand serves only a local or specialinterest.

Over the past few years the PigBook has cited, just to choose a fewfamiliar items connected to Clyburnslargesse: $1 million for the S.C. NationalHeritage Corridor, $5 million for USCsStrom Thurmond Wellness and FitnessCenter, $1.5 million for North MainStreet development in Columbia, $2million for ETV.

Turn attention to Lake Marion andthe Pig Book cites $4 million for theLake Marion Regional Water Agency.

In January, a USC student askedClyburn about controlling pork-barrelspending when Clyburn attended acampus luncheon tagged Eat In SpeakOut.

Clyburn turned ferocious while thestudent turned red. Dont fall for thatjunk; don t fall for that junk , he said,then named the war in Iraq and tax cutsas true budget-busting culprits.

What Clybu rn didnt s ay but isobvious to anyone familiar with this

state is that South Carolinians hungerfor pork, with or without mustard sauce.Its a state tradition: U.S. Sen. Olin

Johnston (Mr. Civil Service) and hispost offices, U.S. Rep. Mendel Rivers(Rivers Delivers) and his militarybases, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond(Everything that was honorable to get,we got it ) and anyt hing.

But Clyburn believes his focus isdifferent, compared to some of thepasts white politicians: He believes heis responsible to the have-nots. Hebelieves he is involved in remediation.

He says politicians of the paststeered infrastructure away from blackand poor and rural areas. None of thesepeople know why their communitydidnt get developed. I would be lessthan human if I didnt do something.

All of this is remedial stuff.If Im in a position to remediate and

dont, Im not worthy of their vote. Imnot worthy of their respect. I couldnt

look at myself in the mirror.

S7 010107 USE BLACK C MYK

FILE PHOTOGRAPH BY RICH GLICKSTEIN/[email protected]

In May 2005, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn joined supporters of the Connector. They gathered to counter Gov. Mark Sanfords kayak trip through Sparkleberry Swamp.

While Sparkleberry is about three miles from the bridge site, the Family Fitness Challenge was intended to challenge Clyburn.

All up in armsCHAP

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5

WWW.THE STATE.COM | THE ST ATE, C OLUMB IA, SOUTH CAROLI NA | SUNDAY , MAY 20, 200 7 7CROSSINGA GREAT DIVIDE

The whole opposition to thisproject is one big falsehood. There is

absolutely no threat to the environment with

this project. None. Theres no disturbance.

Not one inch will be disturbed.


8/19

Ezekiel Bodricks Last

Stop Convenience Store

sits across the railroad

tracks from a ghost town.

His bright red hand-lettered sign, histruck and neighbor Minnie Calhouns bigold car and orange kittens are the onlyproof of life where S.C. 33 bends into whatwas Lone Star.

Follow the curve, instead of crossing thetracks, and you pass the weathered woodof a railroad warehouse, the glass windowsof a brick storefront, the warped tin roofsand rusting gas pumps of two more stores.All are empty; all are sliding into ruin.

Once Lone Star, with its sawmills andcotton gins, was a busy place, a train stopfor mail and cotton bales and passengers,

a shopping stop for men and women inwant of groceries, clothes, tools, horsecollars, a slice from a hoop cheese wheel.

Today, past cotton fields and the smalltrees and bushes of a nursery live Bodrick,his two sisters, two brothers, a daughterand a niece on 26 acres of family land. Theolder Bodricks left for better fortune, thenreturned for retirement.

Of Bodricks seven surviving children, allbut one live in New York. But more land hasbeen purchased and cleared; two childrensoon will retire around a dirt roads bend.

The Bodricks love home, but for threegenerations theyve left it, lost it, regained it.

A grandfather, John Bodrick, a formerslave turned farmer, hightailed it in the1890s to Florida in a run for his life, astory Ezekiel Bodrick tells to explain thehardships of the past.

John Bodrick and his crew werewaiting in line at a Lone Star cotton ginwhen a white man pulled his wagon aheadof theirs. It was the custom: All whites

were served before any blacks.John Bodrick objected, maybe even

stated that objection with a whip.He had to leave town, says his

grandson. They told him if he didnt leavetown by tomorrow, they would kill him.

I didnt see my grandfather until I wasgrown.

Bodricks father, Johnny LuciusBodrick, owned land he farmed with handand foot, mule and plow and wagon. Hitby a car while riding pell-mell to aneighbors fire, he lost a leg. Despite hardtimes, he managed to keep his land, 70acres for cotton, corn, wheat.

Ezekiel Bodrick, born in 1923,remembers working dawn to dusk andlantern light, water hauled from a well,travel by mule and train. The Santee Riverand Upper Santee Swamp were dauntingbarriers for those without time, means ortransportation.

People could catch the train at the LoneStar station and ride across the water for a

penny per mile. A few bold boys walked

the railroad trestle. Most couldnt afford aboat, says Bodrick. A trip by wagon was aslow ride to a small wooden bridge atSantee, where I-95 now crosses.

A teen when the Santee Cooper projectstarted in 1939, Bodrick got a kitchen jobthrough the Works ProgressAdministration. The relief effort put theunemployed to work building publicroads, airport runways, dams.

I stayed in the camp, Camp No. 45.We slept four to a cabin, upstairs anddownstairs bunks. There was a little storein the center and a big shower room and arecreation hall where we played cards.

All the land-clearing was by hand, bigtwo-people saws, and mule. They wouldgive away logs for nothing, all that cypressand red oak. Or they would burn it for days.

They were clearing up that swamp to

bring light. Before that, there werent anylights in this area.

Next, Bodrick worked for the AtlanticCoast Line, riding the rails fromRichmond, Va., to Savannah, Ga. Hedecided to leave the South; he says it waskill or be killed for blacks. And at home,folks earned just 50 cents a day workingsomeone elses land.

Besides, country life was changing.Land once dotted with field hands andsharecroppers shacks was emptying.Machinery did the work.

They were tearing the houses downand wouldnt sell the farmland. A blackperson would come for an acre of land,and they wouldnt sell, says Bodrick.White folks were killing themselvestrying to hold everybody else down.

Bodrick, known as Butter to friends

and relatives and Zeke to acquaintances,moved to Washington, then New York City,working in the warehouses of the MayflowerHotel Co. He built his brick Lone Star housein 1992, the store a few years later.

Bodrick never stopped missing home.Neither did his brothers and sisters. Nowback, they still want something better.They think a bridge is a starting point.

Brother William Bodrick says: We didgo away to get jobs, but we would like tostay here and live well. A bridge might puta nickel in your pocket.

Yes, ties to land are strong andmemories long in South Carolina. Sixtyyears ago they were talking about thatbridge, and it was never built, says EzekielBodrick. When we were clearing up thatland, they said there would be a bridge.

And now, I hear that sometime itshot, sometime its cold. Ive been hearingthat same music for years. I say, Im justgoing to forget about that bridge. Butsome people say, Oh, no, its coming.

Bodricks gruffness turns wistful. Withmy years, it wont make a difference, hesays, But Id like to see it for a year ortwo and see progress.

If you had a highway through here,and people migrate from Sumter, it mightbring business. When you bring in onething, you bring in another.

For the youth, it would do good. Theywouldnt have to leave, like I did.

S8 010107 C MYK

On the Bodricks 20 acres sit five houses for two sisters and three brothers and a trailer for a child. Down sandy Pelican Trail, Ezekiel Bodrick bought more land, so two more children can come home.

Bodricks Last Stop Convenience Store opens at 6 p.m. and stays open to 11 p.m., if the boys come to shoot pool.

The coolers hold beer and eggs; the jukebox in the back plays The Best of BB King.

A nickel in your pocketCHAP

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With my years, it wont make adifference ... For the youth it would do good.

They wouldnt have to leave, like I did.


9/19

S9 010107 C MYK

WWW.T HESTA TE.CO M | THE S TATE, COLUMBIA , SO UTH CAROL INA | SUND AY, MAY 2 0, 20 07 9CROSSINGA GREAT DIVIDE

The clash is guaranteed:

Poor, rural black

communities vs.

environmentalists.

After all, whats left to preserve? Theland that, once upon a time, those inpower didnt want: Remote rural areas,sandhills, tidal wetlands, swamps, seaislands.

Who lives on this l and? In SouthCarolina, mostly poor blacks.

Its almost a one-to-one match, poorblacks and rural areas, poor blacks andunspoiled areas. Race becomes aninevitable issue in Southernconservation.

In North Carolina, an environmentalgroup mapped the match: Persistentlypoor counties are also important naturalareas, says Mikki Sager. She directs theResourceful Communities Program forThe Conservation Fund-North Carolina.

After U.S. Rep. J im Clyburn proposedthe bridge across upper Lake Marion,Sager visited at the environmentalistsinvitation. They hoped she could suggestsome way to negotiate.

As she could have predicted, thecounties surrounding the lake andswamp Calhoun, Clarendon,Orangeburg and Sumter possess birdpreserves, good hunting and fishing andfarming, and a greater minoritypopulation and greater poverty than thestate average.

Sager visited and declined theassignment. She remembers being tornabout several things, particularly thewhole race issue.

Bernie Mazyck sums it up this way:

We kept it. We farmed it. We preservedit. You like it. So tension arises, saysMazyck, president and chief executive ofthe S.C. Association of CommunityDevelopment Corporations.

Environmentalists dont trust thelocal community to know whats best.Definitely, the local community doesnttrust the environmentalists, who say,You cant use this land to support yourcommunity.

Jennie Stephens offers a s imilarsummation: Youve got yours, but youwant to tell me I cant have mine. Theexecutive director of the Center forHeirs Property Preservation inCharleston, Stephens calls the clash anissue of fairness and justice.

Currently, more than a third of ruralproperty owned by African-Americans isheirs property, scholars estimate. Heirsproperty is land held without clear title,often lived on communally by peoplewho may trace ownership back to former

slaves. Obviously, a lack of clear title to

land complicates everything.Says Stephens: You hear what the

environmentalists are saying aboutwanting to protect land, but what aboutpeople who for so long protected landnot valued and now have the opportunityto reap the benefits of their property?

Another clash is gu aranteed: Poor,rural black communities vs. developers.

Who can say that if Clyburn gets hiswish the proposed roa ds and bridgefollowed by ecotourism, golf courses,retirees rural residents would profit?

When Sager visited Lake Marion, shehad another concern besides the clashbetween white environmentalists andblack rural residents: If the bridge werebuilt, she feared ensuing developmentwould be gated communities.

It seems a given that any developmentin the rural counties surrounding thelake would include as neighboringSantee at I-95 already does retirement

and vacation homes behind gates.And that calls up Hilton Head.Hilton Head Island haunts any

discussion of race and land and profit inSouth Carolina. While tourists see shopsand big beach homes and golden sand,others see blacks land loss.

In 1910, African-Americans landownership peaked at 16 million to 19million acres nationally. Today,ownership is down to 7.8 million acres,according to the U.S. Department ofAgriculture. A startl ing 98 percent ofagricultural acreage is owned by whites.

As the Center for Heirs PropertyPreservation notes of land remaining inblacks hands: In the Lowcountry, thatland borders the marshes, wetlands andcoast. Once considered mosquito-infested and undesirable, it is now primereal estate.

The good and the bad of this began inthe sea islands, small islands off thecoast of South Carolina and Georgia. In

1863, President Abraham Lincolns

Emancipation Proclamation freed morethan 10,000 slaves on the S.C. coast and

sea islands, according to Forever Freeby Eric Foner, a Columbia Universityhistorian.

Thanks to an 1865 field order byUnion Gen. William Tecumseh Shermanreserving sea islands for freedpeople,40,000 settled on the coast and islands,working 400,000 acres.

After Lincolns death, PresidentAndrew Johnson restored land to formerplantation owners. Three freedmen onEdisto Island petitioned: ... We werepromised Homesteads by the government.But the freedpeople were evicted.

About 2,000 former slav es keptSherman land. Through tax-saleauctions and the S.C. Land Commission,another 16,000 black families obtainedabout 50,000 acres, historians say.

That gain-and-loss story is the story ofHilton Head Island, then and now, astory Clyburn and others invoke.

Headquarters for a Union blockadesquadron, the island became a refuge for

escaped slaves during the Civil War. Inresponse, Mitchelville, named afterUnion Gen. Ormsby Mitchel, wasestablished, becoming the nations firsttown for freedmen.

At centurys end, an estimated 3,000blacks, owning about 10,000 acres, livedon the island.

In 1950, about 1,000 people, 90percent of them black, still lived there.Then Charles Fraser bought 19,000acres; a bridge, a golf course and a hotelfollowed. Sea Pines Plantation, a gatedcommunity, made Frasers name as adeveloper.

Blacks land ownership dwindled.Today, the population of Hilton Head

has dramatically increased, but thepercentage of African-Americanresidents has dramatically decreased:34,000 people live on the island, 8percent of them black.

Land gives you power. Land givesyou choices to make, says Mazyck.

Land loss in African-American

communities is one of the biggest crisesin the South, says Sager.

Clyburn believes blacks land loss,and the history of Hilton Head inparticular, argue for the bridge. Hethinks of the bridge as a pre-emptivestrike.

In 2001, he wrote: ... Once thedevelopment came, so did the bridges. Iam seeking to reverse that trend. Buildthe bridge first, so those who still live ontheir familys land hold on to it and reapthe benefits. ...

He also calls the bridge symbolic, anoffering up to the past as well as thepresent.

Will Lake Marion be a story ofconservation or development, or athoughtful merging of the two? And whobenefits either way?

Attorney Faith R. Ri vers argues forefforts to bridge the black-green-whitedivide that pits local leaders wish for a

higher standard of living againstenvironmentalists with an anti-growthstance.

The strategy of always saying no toinfrastructure as a way to prevent growthhas consequences for African-Americans,who need infrastructure f or their healthand to occupy their properties, saysRivers, a professor at the University ofVermont.

While executive director of the S.C.Bar Association from 1998-2005, Riversestablished the Heirs PropertyPreservation Project. She continues towork on blacks land loss in SouthCarolina.

Denial of infrastructure isnt theanswer, she says.

Either way, it seems theres danger:harm to the environment, harm topeoples dreams. So the environmentalconversation remains a raceconversation, and the race conversationremains undone.

And whats best remains elusive.

Dorothy Pugh-Hodge and her brother Arthur run a general store near Sparkleberry Landing. Inside, Dots is sparsely stocked; so is her competition at the next landing.Customers are mostly sportsmen looking for snacks.

Either way, it seems theres danger:Harm to the environment, harm to peoples dreams. So the

environmental conversation remains a race conversation, and

the race conversation remains undone.

Black, white and greenCHAP

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10/19

S10 010107 C MYK


The very existence of the

lakes and their dams is a

story of the consequences,good and bad, of what we

call progress.

Some dreams of progress take a longtime, such as the dream of connectingColumbia and Charleston by water. Or thelarger desire to bring prosperity to desolateand destitute stretches of South Carolina.

In 1770, the Commons House ofAssembly proposed a survey to build acanal for both purposes. The RevolutionaryWar and other distractions intervened.

In 1786, a private company with Gov.William Moultrie as president and Gen.Francis Marion as a director wasorganized and chartered by the state. From1793 to 1800, laborers hacked away withpick, ax and shovel, connecting the SanteeRiver to the Cooper River and Charleston.

For 50 years, the 22-mile-long canalserved as a route for cotton-laden barges,

unless there was a drought and untilthe construction of a railway betweenColumbia and Charleston.

But a route by water remained afascination. In the next century, T.C.Williams revived the dream. In 1926, theowner of the Columbia Railway andNavigation Co. obtained a license from theFederal Power Commission for navigationlocks and a hydroelectric project.

But hard times were in the way.Cotton was no longer king. Exhausted

and eroded soil, the boll weevil andcottons dwindling price led to desperationamong farmers. Sharecroppers and tenantfarmers were displaced; blacks and whiteslost land to debt and taxes. South Carolinaentered the Great Depression years beforethe 1929 stock market crash.

By the 1930s, the unemployment ratein rural S.C. counties surpassed 30percent. People died from hunger, WalterEdgar writes in the History of SanteeCooper, 1934-1984.

The S.C. Emergency ReliefAdministration counted 403,000 on its rolls.South Carolina politicians including

Charleston Mayor Burnet R. Maybank,state senators Strom Thurmond andRichard M. Jefferies and U.S. Sen. JamesF. Byrnes saw a chance for federalfunds, jobs and electrification in FranklinDelano Roosevelts promise of publicworks. Ninety-three percent of rural SouthCarolina lacked electricity.

In 1934, state legislation establishedthe S.C. Public Service Authority toconstruct and operate the Santee CooperHydroelectric and Navigation Project andimprove health, welfare and materialprosperity. The lakes and the dams woulddo just that by providing electricity.

In 1935, a guaranteed federal loan andgrant promised a beginning. But courtfights with private utility companiesdelayed the start of work until April 1939.

Soon, blacks and whites, pulled fromthe relief rolls of every county in the state,

were at work. The Works Progress

Administration gave 9,672 SouthCarolinians jobs at the projects peak,according to the 1944 Picture ProgressStory of the Santee Cooper. In all, 12,500workers were employed.

The first task: mosquitoes.It could cost your life to live near the

swamps. In 1931, 17,462 cases of malariawere recorded in South Carolina, 213fatal. The infection and death rates frommalaria were far worse in these low, wetrural counties.

Eighty percent of the areasschoolchildren had malaria. More than 10percent of the states malaria deathsoccurred in Orangeburg County.

Malaria, transmitted by mosquitoes,causes uncontrollable shivering, a highfever, then profuse sweating, headache,nausea, exhaustion perhaps death.These three stages repeat again and again,making surviving malaria a lifelong, life-sapping struggle.

It was low and damp. The plantation

owners had to leave in the spring. Onetold me it was death to go back before first

frost, remembers C.R. Dick Banks.Banks, born in 1920, sports a dapper

mustache and an old-fashioned charm thatevokes the British raj and swagger sticks.He lives in his familys St. Matthewshome, stacked wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceilingwith memorabilia, antiques, oldphotographs, old magazines, old books,old newspapers and cats.

From June 1940 through December1941, Banks was a WPA photographer,recording the land clearing as well as theplantation houses doomed by the project.Later, he served as St. Matthews clerk ofcourt for 24 years.

Before the Santee Cooper project couldbegin, automatic siphons, first tried inIndia and never before in the UnitedStates, drained stagnant pools. Sixteenmotor boats sprayed insecticide alongriverbanks; water was sprayed with oil tokill mosquito larvae.

This was a place of swamps and forestspocked by small farms and fading

plantations. Thanks to poverty, floods,uninhabitable land and malaria, the

counties were sparsely populated. But allresidents in the lakes way had to go,removed by the power of eminent domain.

For the project, 901 families, almost allblack, were relocated. Their houses weremoved or replaced, and they were given 100chickens, says the Picture Progress Story.

While 6,000 graves were moved, manywere left to the waters. A 1939architectural report cited 22 endangeredplantation houses, mostly in BerkeleyCounty, mostly demolished, a few movedbefore lake waters rose. Banks remembersan owner staying in a corner of an historichome as it was dismantled; he remembersanother killing himself.

Plantation owners take issue withreports that the lakes of the Santee-Cooperproject will affect only barren andworthless lands, said a commentary of thetime in the Charleston Post and Courier.

The white landowners got more thanchickens; they were paid $12.19 an acre,much more than the land was worth then,but they were forced off their places, saysEdgar.

In the corporate history, Edgar notes,

Ironically, the largest landowners werenot local folk but absentee and businessinterests who owned vast timberlands.

For the project, 48 WPA camps werebuilt. They hired black and white, butthey wouldnt live in the same cabin,Banks says. Bolted-together small cabinseach slept four; larger kitchens andrecreation and dining halls added to thefeel of a temporary town.

Workers cleared by hand 177,000acres: 100,000 for what would be LakeMarion, 60,000 for what would be LakeMoultrie. Among the virgin hardwood cutwere trees boasting a circumference of13 feet.

World War II brought a sense of haste;the project was declared necessary fornational defense. Electricity was neededin Charleston for the Navy Yard, so thebasin that became Lake Marion wascleared in a rush, stumps left in the lakebed, timber chained to the stumps. Foryears, people could fish from logjams.

On Feb. 17, 1942, Santee Coopergenerated its first electricity.

It came in on schedule. It came in onbudget. It was incredible for that time,says Edgar.

SANTEE COOPERThe Santee Cooper Hydroelectric and

Navigation Project achieved severalfirsts for its time:

Largest land-clearing project in thenations history.

Largest public-works project in thenation.

Highest single lift lock in the world 75 feet at the Pinopolis Dam.

Longest earthen dam in the world, the8-mile-long Santee Dam.

Elimination of malaria. By 1948, nocounty around the lakes reported

malaria.

I would have more sympathy for people who didnt want the bridge if it werent such a black-white situation, says C.R. Dick Banks of St. Matthews.

Totaquine, called the poor mans quinine, was used to treat malaria, which

disabled and killed thousands in South Carolina.

The water risesCHA

P

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Cotton was no longer king.Exhausted and eroded soil, the boll weeviland cottons dwindling price led to

desperation among farmers. Sharecroppers

and tenant farmers were displaced; blacks

and whites lost land to debt and taxes.

South Carolina entered the Great Depression

years before the 1929 stock market crash.


11/19

S11 010107 5/20 C MYK

WWW.THESTATE.COM | THE STATE , COLUMB IA, SOUTH CAROLI NA | SUNDAY, M AY 20, 200 7 11CROSSINGA GREAT DIVIDE

Joseph Britton Pack would

click-clack a handcart across

the wooden railroad trestle

on the Santee River. It was

his job to follow trains,

watching for sparks that

might set the trestle afire.

He first came to Sumter County duringthe Great Depression, a truck farmerselling produce from Greeleyville. In 1946,

he opened Packs Landing on the Riminiside of the trestle. In the 70s, his son andnamesake, Joseph Pack Jr., quit work as acoastal swing-bridge operator to comehome and join the business.

Today, Joseph Britton Pack III, knownas Jody, and his brothers Stevie and AndyPack run Packs Landing. Andy Pack livesin his grandfathers house, behind the baitand tackle store.

Every day in the spring, two or threetimes a week other seasons, they guidefishing trips. When their customers leavethe store for the water, they walk undermounted striped bass, 37-poundmonsters, one caught by Jody Pack, oneby his grandfather.

The brothers have worked as guidessince their early teens. My grandfathertaught me; my father taught me; now Imteaching my son, says Jody Pack, 41, whoknows the water and wetlands from LakeMoultrie into Lake Marion and up theCongaree and Wateree rivers.

When he launches a boat from thelanding, hes entering Packs Flats and theUpper Santee Swamp. Two miles up hetravels a creek past Sparkleberry Landinginto Sparkleberry Swamp. There, Packhas watched osprey catch fish, watcheddeer and wild pig swim. He has caughtglimpses of bobcats and bald eagles.

He says Lower Flats, Upper Flats andthe Santee River offer the best fishing. Butits the silence his customers remark upon,after catch-of-the-day photos are done.

A big, high-energy guy, Pack tenseswhen the subject of the bridge arises. Weknow not one iota about the bridge becauseI cant find one person to tell a straightstory. I dont know enough about any of it.

The bridge would begin on higherground, up the road from the store, then

loom beside the landings store andhouses. Weve been told were hereforever, and the bridge will be suspendedand out of our way, says Pack.

A few miles down the road, inClarendon County, Louis Sam Elliottsays, Were 100 percent for the bridge.

Elliotts father, Richard Furman Elliott,relinquished 300 acres to what becameSantee Cooper in the 1930s. Sell willinglyor not, your land was no longer yours,says Elliott, who adds his father got halfwhat he originally paid for his acreage.

The Elliott family farmed and ranseveral Rimini stores. R.F. Elliotts Grocerystill stands a mile from the landing, itstiered facade like broken teeth now.Inside, new wood bolsters its termite-eatenframe; bottles of totaquine, used to treatmalaria, sit dusty on wooden shelves.

In 1945, the family shut down itssawmill but put the new lake to use withthe opening of Elliotts Landing andCampground, selling bait and tackle andrenting handmade cypress boats, 50 ofthem, for $2 per day.

Rimini faded when the train no longerstopped, and in recent years, the landingbusiness has faded, too. To make do,Elliott cut pulpwood and firewood on his860 acres, added commercial fishing inwinter. After Hurricane Hugo, when thelake was clogged by debris, daughter AliceWeathersbee worked for a deer processor.

The family still runs the campgroundwhere once there was a cow pasture, andfrom March to July sells crawfish from 12ponds. Alice Weathersbee is an officer inthe S.C. Aquaculture Association. Thestill-stocked bait and tackle store adjoinsthe house, a behind-the-counter dooropen to the family table.

Elliott, soft-voiced and slow-spoken,remembers surveys for a bridge in the1950s; hes still hoping. It would raiseproperty values; it would help theeconomy. I wont say it would createtourism, but it would be a big advantage.

Like many locals, he believes therailroad trestle, first built in the 19thcentury, proves a bridge wouldnt harmthe environment. When the woodentrestle burned and they built the newtrestle, the water was clear again.Besides, there have been two derailments,one famously littering diapers, and noneof that affected the lake.

Alice and husband Gary Weathersbee

hunt with bow and arrow. They fish. Andthey want this life plus the bridge, morebusiness, higher property values fortheir 3-year-old son.

My grandfather left this to my dad,

and he loves it, and I love it. I tried to liveby a Wal-Mart, and I couldnt, AliceWeathersbee says of a stint in Sumter.

Theres always room for improvement.If you build something, Mother Nature willtake care of itself, says Gary Weathersbee.

The only thing endangered here ismoney.

Not so, says Dan Daniels, on theopposite side of the lake, in CalhounCounty. Im not for the bridge at all.

In December 2005, Daniels bought thebait and tackle shop at Low Falls Landingand moved into a trailer next door.

This is where the fishermen go toheaven, says Daniels, 64, whose sly humorpeppers every remark with heh-heh-hehs.

He speaks over the constant chirp ofdoomed crickets and the susurration ofwater into holding tanks. On his counter

and shelves sit classic sportsman fare:Vienna sausages, sardines, saltines, pigsfeet, pickled eggs. Behind him, MarilynMonroe stares from a poster.

We see foxes all the time. We see bald

eagles sail over. We watched paintedbuntings and tanagers all summer. Ivecounted 10 osprey at one time in the air. Iveseen more white ibis than I ever saw inFlorida, where the Columbia native workedas a manufacturers rep for refrigerators.

Daniels laughs at himself; hessomething of a jokester, a taxidermistproud of swamp monsters he designed,yet reverent over a 40-pound beavers pelt.Recently he responded to a developersletter with Dont think of coming uphere. This is a wildlife haven. Then Icalled him an inbred thug.

This can never be replaced, and oncetheres a foot in the door, its over. We werein Fort Myers, Fla., in the 70s when youcould roam. Now its like New York City.

Developers get roads in and here itcomes: 7-Elevens and Wal-Marts.

In the 1940s and 50s, the Elliotts rented 50 cypress boats, $2 a day, at Elliotts Landing. Now, the landing includes a campground, while the family raises and sells crawfish. Every

Saturday at noon, March through June, the Elliotts offer a crawfish boil. Clockwise, Louis Sam Elliott; Alice Elliott Weathersbee and Gary Weathersbee and their son Tyler, 3

Dan Daniels sells crickets, nine kinds of worms and frozen bait at Low FallsLanding. But hes more interested in counting painted buntings, awaiting

glimpses of bald eagles, anticipating hundreds of breeding turtles.

Where fishermen go to heavenCHAP

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9This can never be replaced,and once theres a foot in the door, its

over. ... Developers get roads in here and

here it comes: 7-Elevens and Wal-Marts.


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Eva Mae Frederick sits on

the dock beside the Low

Falls boat ramp. She has her

pole, her cooler, her folding

chair, but no fish yet.

Shes counting on crappie, bream orcatfish for dinner. To tell the truth, I dontcatch much anymore, she says. Peoplein boats give some to me. People comefrom far away to fish here, fromColumbia.

Frederick, who lives in St. Matthews,has fished the Upper Santee Swamp sincethe 1950s. She worked on a farm, married,cared for little babies for white women.Now she has time to fish on weekdays.

For her, as for many residents of thearea, a bridge would make Sundays better.Its the first observation rural blackresidents make. Frederick says, Ive gotfamily go to my church; theyve got to goall the way around. Way up there to 601. Itwould be a shorter cut.

She adds a qualification: I want thebridge if it just dont interfere with myfishing.

If the sun is out, someones fishing onthe banks. On weekdays, shift workersand retirees cast and talk. On weekends,johnboats float in the shores shade;pontoon boats putter by.

During hunting seasons, the guys incamouflage and orange park SUVs andhead out for deer, dove, duck, squirrel,raccoon and opossum on the swampshigher, drier land.

John Townsend Cooper, 28 and a third-year student at the Charleston School ofLaw, has fished and hunted duck with hisfather in Upper Santee and Sparkleberryswamps since childhood.

Theres nothing else like it, he says.When youre in the middle of the

swamp, youre as far away from the rest ofSouth Carolina as you could be, away fromthe noise, the trash. There arent too manyplaces you can go and get away like that.

So hes puzzled by the push for a

bridge. He doesnt understand spendingmillions to save a few minutes drivingtime when theres a natural area thatsirreplaceable.

Many sportsmen worry more aboutfewer fish and waterfowl than a bridge bya railroad trestle.

Duck hunter Ricky Coward runs ShadyGrove Kennel in Gilbert, where he alsotrains retrievers. Coward, 50, has huntedin the area since high school andremembers when the Santee WildlifeRefuge would winter 150,000 to 180,000ducks, who flew upriver to feed on swampacorns.

He notes the Briggs-DeLaine-PearsonConnectors current $150-million price tagcreates a difference of opinion, thenadds wistfully that Rep. Jim Clyburn could

best improve the area if he could bringback waterfowl.Louie Chavis, 58, has camped, hunted

and fished in the Upper Santee as far backas he can remember. I remember as ayoung chap, 10, 12, be nothing to go in th eswamp and bag five or six squirrels.

A retired SCE&G lineman who lives inLexington, Chavis is chief of the BeaverCreek Indians. He worries about tinkeringwith nature, whether its bridge building,stocking flathead catfish for sport fishingor adding grass carp to reduce hydrilla.

Mother Nature and the Creator built itthemselves. What gives man the right tobring foreign species in? he asks.

As for a bridge, Through my own eyes,I dont see any possible benefit. We justgot another dead lake.

John Townsend Cooper, motoring past the railroad trestle, hunts duck in the fall and kayaks in the spring in Upper Santee and Sparkleberry swamps.

Any good two to three days in the swamp will renew your soul.

When youre in the middle of the swamp,youre as far away from the rest of South Carolina as you could be,

away from the noise, the trash. There arent too many places you

can go and get away like that.

Eva Mae Frederick has been fishing the Upper Santee Swamp for 50 years, once walking on logjamsto reach good fishing holes. Shes seen gargantuan catfish and one large gator, too.

Nothing else like itCHAP

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10


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WWW.THESTATE.COM | THE STATE , COLUMB IA, SOUTH CAROLI NA | SUNDAY, M AY 20, 200 7 13CROSSINGA GREAT DIVIDE

Where theres water,

people find a way to cross it.

A wooden railroad trestle crosses theUpper Santee Swamp and Santee River,connecting Lone Star and Rimini since the1800s. Once, trains stopped in each town,to load timber and cotton and mail.Whenever the trestle burned, it wasimportant enough to rebuild.

Today, Lone Star and Rimini seemghost towns, but four times each day CSXsends trains across that trestle, carryingcoal, cement and other freight.

Thirty miles or so downriver, peopledrove their mules and wagons across arattling wooden bridge built around 1927.

Later, travelers crossed the U.S. 15-301bridge, completed in the mid-1940s. In1987, that bridge became a fishing pier,and U.S. 301 became part of I-95, now thepassage over Lake Marion.

But, from the moment Lake Marionexisted, there was talk of other bridges.

The route between Sumter andOrangeburg could have been lesscircuitous. But in the 30s, U.S. 301 wasextended south to Summerton, then in the40s, south again along U.S. 15 to Santeeand Orangeburg. So instead of a direct

route, theres an arc.In 1949, above Lake Marion, wooden

bridges were replaced with four

causeways, elevated roads across waters orwetlands. The causeways cross Bates OldRiver and the Congaree River on U.S. 601.

In the 1950s, Orangeburg Sen. L. MarionGressette, busy with the LegislaturesSegregation Committee, squelchedconversations about another bridge .

In 1968, the S.C. Legislature created theOrangeburg-Calhoun-Sumter Toll Bridge

Authority to construct and operate a tollbridge across Lake Marion, connectingLone Star and Pinewood. This time, a

route was determined, and a survey right-of-way was cut across the swamp, close toa fish camp called the Rimini Hilton.

A 1969 Wilbur Smith and Associatesstudy noted that crossings existed at BatesFerry on the Congaree and at Santee, butFor some time, interested parties havefelt a need for an additional crossingbetween these points or in the vicinity of

Lone Star and Rimini.No bridge was built, though. The

legislation also said the state would notoperate the bridge unless it were free ofdebt. The report concluded the project hadmerit, but tolls would not raise enoughrevenue to cover the cost.

In 1996, Fluor Daniel Consultinginvestigated the need for a regionalalliance of five counties Clarendon,Calhoun, Lee, Orangeburg and Sumter to promote development. A bridge wasneeded at the northern end of LakeMarion, the study advised, calling this themost important single project whichwould allow for greater access.

In 1997, during a meeting of the LakeMarion Regional Water Project, DavidSummers resurrected the idea yet again.The chairman of Calhoun CountyCouncil told Rep. Jim Clyburn the story

of his fathers death en route fromSumter to Cameron.Clyburn, who grew up in Sumter, had

heard the talk of another bridge and wasintrigued. So the men got a map out and laidit on a table. We laid a ruler down, thendrew a line across Lake Marion, connectingLone Star and Rimini, recalls Summers.

I think Ill work on that, Clyburnresponded.

Once you could buy a slice of hoop cheese, a horse collar or a dress on Lone Star Road. Now, tin roofs curl on empty buildings; a gas pump says 63 cents a gallon.

Cameron Road, Lone Star Road, Dusty Lane, McCords Ferry Road: The traffic is light, just farm trucks, logging trucks

and the occasional rusting car travel past cotton fields and pines.

Once, the trains stoppedCHAP

TER

11

Thirty miles or so downriver,people drove their mules and wagons across

a rattling wooden bridge built around 1927.

... From the moment Lake Marion existed,

there was talk of other bridges.


14/19

S14 010107 C MYK


Ten years ago, when Rep.

Jim Clyburn told David

Summers he would work

on a proposed bridge

across Lake Marion, it was

no idle comment.

A preachers son doesnt just makepromises; he makes vows. And apreachers son doesnt depend on or talkabout luck or fate. A preachers son relieson and talks about a calling.

Clyburn explains, as a preachers sonwould, through his father and the Bible,Matthew 25:16.

My father used to preach a lot fromthe Parable of the Talents, he says,referring to a story in which a mastergives his servants money before leavingon a trip. One servant is given five talents,another servant two, another servant asingle talent.

The master, upon his return, praisesthe two who traded and doubled theirmoney; he rebukes the servant who buriedhis talent rather than use it.

My dad always used that story to talkabout the gifts people have, says Clyburn.I think I can be akin to the one with fivetalents. I believe whatever I have must beput to use or that which I have will be

taken away.Clyburn believes he was called toremediate, to even the scales, to right thewrongs and in whatever time he has inCongress he will do just that.

We all have stories we use to explainourselves, but Clyburn wants to do so inthe context of the times he grew up in, inthe context of the South Carolina he wantsto change.

So he speaks in parables. He explainshis immovable stance on the bridgethrough stories with morals.

His second story speaks to obligation:In 1960, student sit-ins and protest

marches swept the South. Clyburn,attending S.C. State in Orangeburg, wasamong nearly 400 students arrestedduring a civil-rights march. The studentswere jailed at what was called the PinkPalace.

Clyburn was chosen to testify at thetrial by the Rev. I. DeQuincey Newman,then president of the state NAACP, and

Matthew Perry, then chief counsel for thestate NAACP.

In those days, white-ownednewspapers printed the names ofpetitioners and protesters, who were thenthreatened, harassed and fired. Whenstudents protested, their parents sufferedconsequences.

Newman told him, Clyburn, it willhave to be you. Your daddys a minister;hes not preaching to white folks. Yourmothers a beautician; shes not fixingwhite folks hair. Youre the only oneinsulated.

Clyburn adds, Matthew Perry referredto me as a star witness. But my parentshad insulated me. It wasnt about me. Ididnt do a thing but breathe.

I do things because Im insulated. I saythings because Im insulated. I dont feelvulnerable.

Clyburns third story unveils a familysecret:

His father, Enos Lloyd Clyburn, grew

up in Blaney (renamed Elgin in the 1960s).

Enos Clyburn was a widower, a preacherand a carpenter when he met AlmetaDizzley, 18 years his junior. She was astudent at Camdens Mather Academy,founded in 1887 by the New EnglandSouthern Conference of the WomensHome Missionary Society of the MethodistChurch.

The two married, and Enos Clyburnaccepted a post in Sumter so the couplecould attend Morris College. Clyburnremembers his mothers graduation in1953; he was 13.

Many years later, in 1978, a ministerasked Clyburn about his last name, sayinghe remembered a smart Morris classmatenamed Clyburn who dropped out.

I drove straight to Sumter and told mydaddy what I heard,says Clyburn.

Enos Clyburnrevealed a familysecret. BecauseKershaw County didntoffer high school forblack students, heattended the last gradeavailable, seventhgrade, three times toget the most he could.

Clyburn repeatsthat: Three times.

Enos Clyburn gotinto Morris by taking

an entrance exam. Inhis third year, he wasasked to produce proofof high-schoolgraduation.

He couldnt. He left.His father planned

to take this to hisgrave. But where hefelt shame, Clyburnfound courage. Thatspart of what drives me to this day.

His fourth story remarks on the echoesof white and black, still s ounding.

In 1970, on the night John C. West waselected governor, Clyburn went to bedthinking he had won himself a seat in theS.C. House. He woke up the next morningto find he had lost.

Two days later, West invited Clyburn tojoin his staff; Clyburn would be the firstminority adviser to an S.C. governor. Isaid, I dont think Id like to do that. Im alittle outspoken. Im not sure Ill be a good

fit.

Clyburn remembers West replying, If Iwere black with as much talent as youvegot, Id be much more militant than youare. I can take you if you can take me.

He feels a deep connection and alasting gratitude to West, but theres a sidetrip to this story, all about the bridge.

In 1971, Clyburn and wife, EmilyEngland Clyburn, were invited to the

governors Christmas party, held at aBerkeley County conference center calledWampee; the original Wampee Plantationis under Lake Moultries waters.

What could have been thrilling wasinstead upsetting.

Mattie England, Clyburns mother-in-law, burst into tears at the news.

She had never set foot at Wampee,and the reason, shefinally told me, withtears streaming downher face, was Mygreat-grandmamasgrave is at the bottomof that lake. Theyflooded that lake anddidnt give a damnabout our graves.

Clyburn observes,If you dontunderstand the history,you wouldnt know onplantations the slavesgrave sites were at the

waters edge. Blackpeople preferred to beat the waters edge sotheir souls could goback to Africa.

So that land hadslaves graves, but thenit became useful.People who prefer toignore those things,thats their prerogative.

I dont, and I factor it into what I do.His fifth story makes you wonder about

both fate and callings and time.In 1992, a tribute was held in the state

Senates chambers to honor Clyburnselection to Congress. In his remarks,Clyburn noted, Ill have the opportunityto continue a legacy, the one my great-great-uncle George Washington Murray ofSumter began 100 years ago.

While this connection is a family tale,rather than a documented branch of thefamily tree, Clyburn could find a greater

kinship than mere blood in Murrays

quests.A U.S. congressman from 1893-97,

Murray was South Carolinas only blackand only Republican congressman at atime when the Democratic Party ran thestate and excluded blacks.

He also was the nations only blackcongressman, and thus the highest-ranking black public official in the U.S.,according to A Black Congressman in theAge of Jim Crow: South Carolinas GeorgeWashington Murray by John F.Marszalek.

Born a slave on a Sumter plantation,Murray became a farmer in his teens. In1874, he passed a competitive exam toenter USC, but Reconstructions collapseended access during his sophomorestudies.

In 1880, he owned 49 acres of tilledland, 15 acres of woodlands, four pigs, oneox, one horse, one mule and eightchickens. He served as Sumters delegateto the state Republican Party convention,and at a Sumter meeting of 2,000 blacks,his speech earned him a nickname: thebold black eagle of South Carolina.

Murray spoke often of race pride,telling listeners they had to overcome notonly physical but mental and spiritualslavery. However, he campaigned andserved against a background of murdersand mass lynchings.

He tried much, including petitions,lawsuits and a protection society, to stop

South Carolinas disfranchisement ofblacks. When his faith in politics faded, hetried economics: He bought then sold landto blacks; in the process, his tenantsbecame landowners and legallyqualified voters.

In 1904, Murray was charged withforging a duplicate lease. Marszaleksbook calls it an example of legalwhitecapping, a way to rid the communityof a troublesome black. Murray gainednothing by the document in question butwas sentenced to three years hard labor.

As he appealed, he was charged withperjury. He turned his holdings over tohis attorney and escaped to Chicago.Sumter whites opposed extraditionbecause he would be looked upon in thelight of a martyr.

Murray continued to speak and write visiting 30 states in 10 years advocating education and race models todevelop black spiritual freedom. He diedin 1926, forgotten and poor.

Marszalek describes Murray as clever,pragmatic, hard-working, untiring,dedicated, ambitious and demagogic.However, the Mississippi State Universityprofessor adds, He had the wrong skin,and he belonged to the wrong politicalparty to succeed in South Carolina.

Murray was the states last blackcongressman until Clyburn.

In March, Clyburn took the stage inCharleston with U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton,a presidential aspirant; Charleston MayorJoe Riley, a longtime supporter; andretired U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings. Thesepowerful people gathered to celebrate hisascension to House Whip.

Like Murray, Clyburn is a black mantrying to effect change in opposition to hisstates white majority party. He told theoverflow crowd stories about paststudents; like Murray he was a teacher.

And maybe he was channeling Murraywhen he said, We must regain our sense ofcommitment. We must regain our sense of

worth ... to make a better life for all of us.

Clyburns annual fish fry fried fish on Wonder Bread doused with hot sauce and mustard happened in a Gervais Street parking garage this past April,but lured political stars. From left, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, Columbia Mayor Bob Coble, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Clyburn, U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, John Edwards,

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Barak Obama

In 1992, a tribute was heldin the state Senates chambers to honor

Clyburns election to Congress. In his

remarks, Clyburn noted, Ill have the

opportunity to continue a legacy, the one

my great-great-uncle George Washington

Murray of Sumter began 100 years ago.

The parable of the talentsCHAP

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12

Clyburn loves to tell the story ofmeeting Emily England; she

offered him half a burger after acivil-rights arrest. They married

on June 24, 1961.


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WWW.THESTATE.COM | THE STATE, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA | SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2007 15CROSSINGA GREAT DIVIDE

Wetlands and wildlife

The Santee National WildlifeRefuge, 15,095 acres, was created

on the Clarendon County side of

Lake Marion in 1941.

Lake Marion is good for fishing,

but not so good for boating,because hasty land clearing to

create the lake basin World War

II pushed a need for electrification

meant stumps remain.

Currently, 100,000 to 300,000fish travel upriver through the boatlock on the Cooper River Dam and

a fish lift at the St. Stephen Dam,

added in 1985.

Fish play a role in negotiations forthe first Santee Cooper license

renewal in 50 years. Recently,

Santee Cooper, the S.C.

Department of Natural Resources

and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service agreed on a draft settlement

that would increase fish passage at

the Wilson Dam, with a target of 14

million to 16 million fish per year.

Before the lakes and dams, theSantee Rivers average flow was

about 15,000 cubic feet per

second; now its 500. In the federal

relicensing process under way,

Santee Cooper proposed increasing

flow to 1,200 cubic feet per

second. Thats under negotiation,

though; studies say the endangered

shortnose sturgeon needs 5,000 to

8,000 cubic feet per second.

What is a swamp?A wetland that includes land p ermanently or periodically under water , as well as dry land with shrubs an d trees

SparkleberryLanding

JacksLanding

Arbuckle

special section: bridging lake marion

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