Little brown bat with white-nose syndrome in Vermont (Courtesy: USFWS)

Called “White-nose syndrome,” it first flared up in New York five years ago and has since wiped out more than 5.5 million bats in 16 states and Canada, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Some groups, such as Bat Conservation International, fear the fungus could cause the extinction of the animals completely in some areas.

It was detected in North Carolina’s Transylvania County for the first time last year and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources is afraid it will soon reach the mountains of the Upstate. “I really expected to see it last year,” agency biologist Mary Bunch said, “I was relieved not to, but we really expect to see it soon.”

Bunch said the fungus grows on the bats while they are hibernating, causing them to wake up too early in the winter and starve to death with no insects to eat. “It’s really an awful thing to see,” she said, “They’ll die on the landscape. Sometimes, they’ll die right at the entrance to a cave.”

There is no known cure for White-nose syndrome, but bats’ immune systems are able to fight it– as long as they are active. Once the bat goes into hibernation for several months, the fungus grows in its fur. If enough time passes, the fungus eventually covers the bat’s wing membranes.

Bunch said she and others hope the shorter winters of South Carolina can work to the bats’ advantage. She said some of the animals likely took advantage of the warmer weather in recent weeks to forage for insects, helping fight off the disease.

DNR will spend the rest of the month checking hibernation sites in the Upstate. Bunch said they have not yet found the fungus in the two colonies searched so far, but she’s sure it’s only a matter of time. If not this year– then eventually.

“It’s like standing on the tracks watching a train bear down on you,” she said.

Bunch said if bats do start to die off in South Carolina, it will likely lead to a major increase in agricultural pests. For instance, a single brown bat can eat hundreds of insects each night– helping keep the insect population in check.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, which filed the challenge on behalf of the Coastal Conservation League, the Savannah Riverkeeper, and the South Carolina Wildlife Federation, cited a recent South Carolina Supreme Court decision that expands pollution regulations.

The lawsuit states the Army Corps of Engineers– which will oversee the dredging– cannot move any further unless it gets the permit.

“This situation is a once in a century, or maybe once in a millennium, project,” SELC senior attorney Frank Holleman told South Carolina Radio Network, “This is one of the most significant environmental projects to occur in South Carolina in our lifetime.”

“The important thing is that the permit process allows the public of the state… to comment and offer their expert knowledge and perspectives on the impact,” he added. 

The Corps of Engineers says it does not comment on pending legal action.

As part of the deepening, the Army Corps will dump the river’s spoil on the South Carolina side of the river. Holleman said environmental groups are concerned because the mud will include cadmium, a toxic material.

The Corps may not have applied for the permit last year because it did not think it was required at the time. Last July, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state’s environmental agency had jurisdiction over “isolated wetlands.” Prior to that, the Department of Health and Environmental Control was only regulating coastal wetlands. However that could change again, as some state legislators say they want to move the law back to its previous interpretation.

Holleman argued the court interpreted the law properly. He addied the permitting process would give the public a chance to comment on the project.

While DHEC’s board recently signed off on the dredging in a controversial decision last year, Holleman said the pollution control permits are an entirely separate issue.

The new facility replaces this 50-year-old coal-fired plant (Courtesy: Department of Energy)

A new biomass plant is now powering much of the Savannah River Site. Earlier this month, the U.S. Energy Department opened the facility, which generates steam power by burning wood chips.

SRS spokesman Jim Giusti said the new facility replaces a 50-year-old coal plant, “It was very expensive, very old,” he told South Carolina Radio Network, “We were spending millions annually just to maintain it.” He said it would be cost-prohibitive to bring the coal plant into compliance with new federal regulations.

In 2007, the Massachusetts energy service firm Ameresco won a consulting contract from the Energy Department. After studying the site, Ameresco officials recommended the biomass plant as the best way to reduce energy costs at SRS.

A big factor in the decision was that Energy Department officials allow timber companies to use the site. “There’s a significant amount of (wood) waste that was just being left behind on the forest floor,” said Keith Derrington, Ameresco’s general manager for federal operations, “So we had a ready source of fuel within a short distance of the plant.”

The new facility is the largest federally-owned biomass plant in the country and cost $195 million to build. Ameresco paid for the start-up costs, which the Energy Department will reimburse through its cost-savings in the coming years.

The plant will convert 322,000 tons of fuel each year, according to Ameresco– equivalent to about 50 truckloads per day.

The plant will also use shredded tires as an energy source. Ameresco received approval this week for a new facility near Jackson that will process the tires into pellets which can be combined with the wood chips. Derrington said the chemicals in tires have higher energy content than wood. Under the terms of Ameresco’s permits, however, tires cannot make up more than 10 percent of its total fuel.

The company has promised the Energy Department $944 million in savings over the next 19 years. From an emissions perspective, Ameresco’s projections claim the biomass facility will release 400 fewer tons of particulate matter each year and 3,500 less tons of sulfur dioxide annually.

“It solved a major environmental problem for them,” Derrington said.

Ameresco has done other work in South Carolina. It also operates a much smaller biomass facility at the Federal Correctional Institute in Estill.

Ann Timberlake, Executive Director of Conservation Voters of South Carolina, questions Templeton’s credentials to run an agency charged with protecting the health of the public and the environment of South Carolina.

The DHEC board chose Templeton over DHEC deputy commissioner Pam Dukes and Ingo Angermeier, a former chief executive of the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.

Timberlake has some concerns that DHEC may be moving in a new direction under Governor Haley. She cites Haley’s support of the Savannah River dredging as evidence. The South Carolina House voted unanimously Wednesday to stop the impending dredging of 36 miles of the Savannah River. The measure suspends DHEC’S authority for all decisions after 2007 that apply to state’s part of the Savannah River. The issue may be decided in court.

Timberlake says she has some concerns that environmental controls could be relaxed for some industries in a state that already has problems with pollution. She wants state senators to ask more questions before approving Templeton for the job.

 AUDIO: Timberlake concerned about the direction of DHEC

Governor Haley and the state Senate must approve Templeton’s appointment. She is expected to start February 1.

Legislators, led by Newberry Senator Ronnie Cromer, discovered that Frampton felt he was being forced out by DNR Board Chair Caroline Rhodes. Frampton is now being allowed to retire on March 17.

Just today in the Senate, Richland’s Darrell Jackson called the board chairwoman to step down.

AUDIO: Sen. Jackson urges Cromer to take further action

Cromer says he reprimanded Rhodes in a letter. Taylor will become the official director in March.

Catherine Templeton (File)

A year after being appointed by Governor Nikki Haley as director of the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, Catherine Templeton has been selected as head of the Department of Health and Environmental Control. The DHEC board, largely appointed by Haley, gave the nod to Templeton Wednesday.

The 41-year-old Templeton is a Mount Pleasant attorney who has represented businesses in employee lawsuits. Governor Haley and the state Senate must approve Templeton’s appointment. She is expected to start February 1. She would be replacing outgoing DHEC Commissioner Earl Hunter who is retiring after 10 years at the post. In all, Hunter has spent more than 30 years with the agency.

Templeton made headlines last year when she was sued, along with Governor Haley, by a machinists’ union during the Boeing dispute for making anti-union statements. The suit was dismissed.

The DHEC board chose Templeton over fellow finalists DHEC health rgulator Pam Dukes and Spartanburg hospital executive Ingo Angermeier.

Under the bill, any wastewater utility that has three spills of 5,000 gallons within a 12-month period (per every 100 miles of pipe) would have to undergo a thorough audit by the state’s environmental agency. The audit would then order a plan to minimize any future spills.

Under current law, utilities only have to report spills; there is no penalty. “We wanted to stop chronic spills from occurring and entering our waterways and drinking water,” said state Rep. Mike Pitts (R-Laurens), who sponsored the bill.

The language was a compromise between conservation groups and the utilities. “The majority of wastewater treatment facilities are doing a good job and do not have repeated spills,” said Debbie Parker, program director of the Conservation Voters of South Carolina, “But there are a handful, unfortunately, who have.”

According to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control’s website, 35 spills of 5,000 gallons or more have occurred in South Carolina over the past six months. However, the environmental group Upstate Forever says most of those spills happen to about 10 percent of the state’s utilities. More than half of the state’s 531 municipal waste systems have not had problems, the group says.

“Everybody thinks that this would actually attack the smaller municipalities,” Pitts said, “But the actual violators that commit the continual problems are the big boys.”

Patrick Jackson is executive vice president of the South Carolina Rural Water Association, a nonprofit group that helps small utilities set up their sewer systems. He says the biggest problem is that many municipal utilities lack the funding to upgrade their sewage system.

“Some of these systems were installed fifty-plus years ago,” Jackson said, “You’re trying to meet 2012 regulations with 1920s infrastructure. It makes it difficult.”

According to DHEC, two of the biggest spills since last summer (each about 380,000 gallons) occurred in Summerville. The cities of Columbia, Florence, and Laurens also have chronic wastewater problems.

The bill also requires the utilities to notify the public of any spills that exceed 5,000 gallons.

“Unfortunately, I think… the public is unaware of the numbers of water bodies in South Carolina that are polluted,” Parker said, “And a lot of times, people will fish and go swimming in polluted waters and not even realize it.”

The bill has had relatively little opposition in either the House (where it passed unanimously) or the Senate (where it passed 36-2). It could head to the governor’s desk before the end of the week.

Courtesy: Friends of the Hunley

On Thursday, experts carefully removed a 50-foot, 17,000-pound truss that has long been sitting on top of the Hunley. Although researchers say the truss was necessary for the Hunley’s safety, it has also completely obstructed a complete view of the submarine until now.

Officials at Clemson’s Warren Lasch Conservation Center said the move was done to improve the visitor experience. “Separating the truss from the Hunley represents the official beginning of the final conservation treatment of the Hunley,” Director Mike Drews said in a statement.

The Hunley made history in 1864 when it became the first submarine to successfully sink an enemy ship– the U.S.S. Housatonic– in the Charleston harbor. However, the submarine sank shortly afterwards itself, taking its eight-member crew down with it.

The wreck was discovered by Clive Cussler’s National Underwater and Marine Agency in 1995. It was raised five years later and delivered to the Lasch Center. The Hunley’s study and conservation is run by the Clemson University Restoration Institute, the South Carolina Hunley Commission, Naval Historical Center, and Friends of the Hunley.

The next step will be modifications on the Hunley’s 90,000-gallon conservation tank.  The tank – which currently holds chilled fresh water to stabilize the submarine as it awaits treatment – needs to be altered in order to accommodate the chemicals necessary to conserve the sub.

Scientists hope to have the submarine soaking in the chemical solution by the end of the year. The solution is designed to leach out salts that got into the ship’s iron hull while it sat on the ocean floor. Salt is toxic to iron.

DNR director John Frampton (Courtesy: SCDNR)

DNR director John Frampton said earlier this year that he planned to retire in March. However, the agency’s board of directors– which is appointed by the governor– asked him to move his retirement up to January so they could take the agency in a new direction.

But two board members who support Frampton accused the other five members of conspiring to oust the director. In an unusually confrontational Dec. 8 meeting (watch video here), John Evans and Norman Pulliam convinced other board members not to accept Frampton’s resignation letter, saying they had been left out of several phone conversations between the other board members and that such conversations could have violated the state’s open meetings laws.

During the meeting, Frampton said Chairwoman Caroline Rhodes had asked him to quit. That angered Evans and Pulliam, who questioned how she could do that without a formal vote by the board.

The accusations prompted state Sen. John Land (D-Clarendon) to write a letter to Senate leaders requesting that legislators look into the board’s actions. Now, the Senate Fish, Game, and Forestry Committee is getting involved. Chairman Ronnie Cromer (R-Newberry) sent a formal request Monday for information from Rhodes and others at DNR.

“We thought the best way to approach this was to try to get all the facts before we had any hearings,” Cromer told South Carolina Radio Network.

Cromer said he’s not sure if the board acted improperly or not, but wants to make sure. “All I know right now is what I saw on the video,” he said, referring to streaming video of the board’s meeting, “Based on the video, there were several misunderstandings and hurt feelings, I could tell, amongst the board members. I’m not sure if there’s anything there or not. That’s why we’re trying to do this investigation.”

Cromer hoped that Rhodes would respond to the request, saying he wanted to avoid contentious high-profile hearings such as what happened with the state’s environmental agency three weeks ago that eventually led to four members of Gov. Nikki Haley’s staff being subpoenaed.

“The woman from Sumter County woman who contracted rabies actually had been bitten by a bat. We believe that bat had gotten in her home several months ago and then the virus traveled slowly and infected the patient,” says Beasley.

Beasley says tragically, rabies almost always ends in death–as there is no cure. He says there are only about one to three cases of rabies in the country a year.

Like the current case, Beasley says rabies takes some time to fully develop.

“The rabies virus, it’s important to understand, it travels very slowly through the body until it reaches the brain in the central nervous system and it produces some serious initial symptoms such as headaches, difficulty swallowing, seizures, anxiety, agitation and also some confusion,” says Beasley.

If you find a bat in your home:

“It’s important not to release it outside. If you can, first of all, don’t touch it with your bare hands, but try to trap it under a container, and then you can contact your DHEC County Environmental Health office to have that bat tested for rabies,” says Beasley.

Besides bats, other rabies-infested animals in South Carolina include raccoons, foxes, skunks and other wild animals.

The Port of Charleston has requested the study as it prepares for bigger ships that will begin arriving on the East Coast once the Panama Canal is widened in 2014. “Right now, these larger ships have begun to call on Charleston harbor, but they can only come at high tide or not fully loaded,” ACE Charleston District spokesman Sean McBride said.

The Corps of Engineers has to study if the engineering, economic and environmental cost of the dredging will be worth it. Such a study normally takes 5-8 years to complete, but Corps officials say they are streamlining the review and approval process as much as possible to save time.

The feasibility study is also not fully funded as Congress has not yet aside the money. Under an  agreement announced earlier this year, the South Carolina Ports Authority is paying for 50 percent of the study’s costs, but it says it cannot pay the estimated $20 million the entire project requires.

The ACE will be studying several alternative depths for the harbor’s current federally-authorized 45 feet. McBride said the study will focus on three areas: economic, engineering, and environmental.

The engineering feasibility takes into account if the project can be built, what must be done to make it safe and what the cost will be. The economic studies will look at cost/benefit analysis and the economic benefit to the nation.

Environmental issues will include: air, surface/ground water and sediment quality, fish habitats and endangered species, shoreline changes, and cultural and historical resources.

Each area will be represented by a station in the auditorium during Tuesday’s meeting. The Ports Authority will have its own display table. Charleston District commander, Lt. Col. Edward Chamberlayne will also make a presentation starting at 6:45 pm. Members of the public can provide comments by written or electronic means. They can also speak to a court reporter.

“Public input is essential to our process in order to help us look at everything we possibly need to look at while completing the study,” he said.

Completion of the study does not guarantee the harbor will be dredged.

Aiken Department of Public Safety officials say they were able to recover the paperwork from the Department of Health and Environmental Control Wednesday, but did not say how or offer any other details. Officials had said the briefcase was stolen Tuesday morning from an unlocked car parked outside an Aiken Wal-Mart.

The DHEC employee said someone had entered her car while she was inside the store on Richland Avenue. Investigators did not say what the woman’s job was, or whether any disciplinary action would be taken against her. They also did not offer any further details about the paperwork itself.

At the time, police said the two suspects were white males in their late teens to mid-20s driving a white Jeep Grand Cherokee. However law enforcement officials did not say Thursday if they were still looking for those two.

“The nature of the recovery and persons involved is not being released at this time in order to prevent compromise of the continuing investigation,” the Aiken Public Safety Department said in a statement late Thursday.