Study: Myrtle Beach area flood canal impractical

Price, environmental impact for Waccamaw cited

A potential flood diversion canal for the Waccamaw River is not economically feasible, according to a study being released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Charleston District.

The study was conducted at the request of and with matching funds from Horry County after a group of citizens living in the flood plane came forward with concerns over whether flooding similar to that during Hurricane Floyd could happen again.

With a price tag of about $118 million, the Corps of Engineers project managers said the benefit to alleviating the flood concerns for 15 houses along the portion of the Waccamaw River is not enough for the federal government to move forward with the canal.

The Corps of Engineers is collecting public input on the study tonight.

"After Hurricane Floyd we had a lot of flooding in downtown Conway. [The Corps of Engineers] did a study at that time and said the canal was not economically feasible at that point. We had citizens who questioned that decision and put pressure on state and local officials," said Horry County Stormwater Manager Tom Garigen. "We paid the Corps of Engineers to look at it one more time. This study is more comprehensive and we're satisfied."

Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Glenn Jeffries said the Corps has conducted three other studies on the possibility of the canal periodically since the beginning of the 1900s. The original plan for the canal would have started the canal in North Carolina and ended it in Little River. The updated plan had the canal starting in the Red Bluff Community and flowing into Little River, eliminating about 5,000 cubic feet of water per second.

Despite the shift in placement, Jeffries said the canal plan has more potential bad effects with each study the Corps of Engineers has completed.

"The idea is getting a little worse each time we look at it, because we're looking at more environmental impacts and impacts on other areas as well that weren't necessarily a concern in the 1930s," she said. "I'll put it this way, in order to meet our cost-benefit ratio a project has to receive a score of one or above. This project received a 0.0143 for that ratio."

Garigen said the county has a zoning rule requiring people to elevate their houses to a foot above the 100-year flood plane when building new construction in the flood zone. The older houses in the area were not required to retrofit for the requirement when it was passed.

"I'm hoping that this study puts the issue to rest. We're always going to have flooding issues. We need to learn to live within those boundaries," he said. "Man-made solutions are not always the best in these situations."

At Coastal Carolina University, Susan Libes, Director fo the Waccamaw Watershed Academy was one of several professors who offered environmental impact concerns to the Corps of Engineers for the study. She said some of the major concerns would be protecting wetland habitat, maintaining water quality and interrupting the natural flood cycles that bring nutrients to areas along the river.

"This is a system that naturally experiences flooding. Interrupting any kind of natural cycles will have unknown effects," Libes said. "For example, if you don't let the water get up really high periodically, you aren't going to flood the backwater swamps, and that could have a really big impact on the hardwood trees."

According to the study the canal would cause potential issues for the flood insurance zones, for sediment in the bay, for utility lines and for road construction, for possible salt water surges and for possible invasive species issues.