South Carolina NRCS Celebrates Wetlands Month in Orangeburg

By: Sabrenna Bennett, Public Affairs Staff

“Wetlands are the link between land and water, where the flow of water, the cycling of nutrients and the energy of the sun meet to produce highly productive ecosystems.”

This is just one of the many definitions describing wetlands and their importance to the environment. They provide a critical transition zone in watersheds, and are vital links between land and water. Benefits of wetlands include erosion control, nutrient retention, groundwater recharge, habitat for hundreds of species of animals and plants, prevention of pollution from surface water runoff and hunting and recreational activities.

In honor of wetlands, May was deemed National Wetlands Month in 1991 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and their partners, as a way to educate Americans about the value of wetlands as a natural resource. NRCS celebrated the importance of wetlands on May 11, 2005, in Bowman (Orangeburg County), South Carolina. The event was held on the property of Mark Behr, a landowner enrolled in the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) and one of six landowners involved in the Four Holes Swamp Special Initiative WRP Project. This initiative involves six permanent, adjoining easements that will restore over 6,000 acres of wetlands.

The event featured comments from local, state and national officials, including Frank Stephens, Orangeburg NRCS District Conservationist, Walter W. Douglas, South Carolina NRCS State Conservationist, and Courtenay McCormick, Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Conservation in Washington, DC. Local landowners, media representatives and NRCS agency partners were also present. During the program, officials discussed several topics, including wetland restoration from a state and national perspective, Four Holes Wetland Restoration, and WRP, a voluntary program that provides technical and financial assistance to eligible landowners to address wetland, wildlife habitat, soil, water, and related natural resources concerns on private lands.

“We chose the Four Holes Swamp project area as the site for our celebration because it is one of the largest areas in the state where adjacent wetlands will be restored back to their original hydrology,” explained Douglas. The area is part of the Four Holes Swamp, a 450,000 acre area that flows 62 miles through four counties, before it joins the Edisto River and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Four Holes Swamp Special Initiative WRP Project is not only important because it will restore several thousand acres of wetlands, but also because the overall goal of this initiative is to restore the natural hydrology of the land by removing blockages, such as roads and culverts, that prevent the natural flow of water through the floodplain.

Over the last century, logging operations in the area installed roads through the wetlands that disturbed the natural flow of the water, negatively affecting the habitat and possibly causing certain areas to become completely dry. By converting the area back to its original hydrology, the migration of fish and other aquatic species will be facilitated and the delivery of food sources downstream will resume, benefiting many animal and plant species.

“These willing landowners have entered into a conservation easement with our agency that will protect these wetlands forever,” explained Stephens. “While it may take a couple of decades to restore itself, we are taking the necessary steps to ensure that these wetlands will thrive to benefit future generations.”

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