Effort to protect wetlands smoothed Boeing’s landing

A unique preservation effort has seen the loss of fewer than 40 wetlands acres lead to vast swaths of land becoming part of the state’s permanent conservation footprint.

The S.C. Department of Commerce and Vought Aircraft Industries announced Thursday that a nonprofit trust created by Vought and the state has protected six tracts of wetlands in the Charleston area totaling more than 7,500 acres.

That situation came about through a creative mitigation process during which Vought and local land protection groups were able to leverage a $4.75 million state grant into $9.6 million in investments and additional land donations valued at $18.1 million.

The Ashley-Cooper Rivers Environmental Trust was formed in 2005 after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required Vought to produce a mitigation plan before it began clearing land for its new facilities at the Charleston International Airport. Those facilities are now owned by Boeing Co.

The land that Vought planned to build on was essentially surrounded by development, so the company began looking for alternative ways of replacing the 38 acres of wetland affected by its construction, according to the Coastal Conservation League’s Nancy Vinson, who served as the trust’s secretary.

Instead of focusing on one tract, Vought began a competitive bidding process that allowed nonprofit organizations to obtain matching grants when acquiring property or conservation easements near wetland areas in the Charleston area, the Commerce Department said in a statement.

The process is akin to the State Conservation Bank, Commerce said, allowing matching dollars or land donations for groups to compete for funds, in turn maximizing conservation efforts and the extending the money’s influence.

“Instead of doing the standard thing, kind of came up with this much better way to create an enormous win-win by protecting far more wetlands in the right places,” Vinson said.

Acreage protected by the trust includes land at The National Audubon Society’s Francis Beidler Forest and land in the Ashley River Historic District. Six grants were also issued to the Audubon Society and Ducks Unlimited to expand existing preserves and create new ones.

Bonus for Boeing
Vought’s wetlands permit was forward-thinking, Vinson said, taking into account the likelihood that additional aircraft manufacturing and assembly work might come to the site where the Vought and Global Aeronautica facilities were being built.

The permit’s all-encompassing nature eventually served to shorten the timeline for the construction Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner facility after the plane maker bought out Vought’s operations last year, Vinson said.

“It should be noted that this unique mitigation effort played a significant role in the quick advancement of the Boeing project last fall because permits were put in place when establishing the initial Vought and Global Aeronautica facilities,” Gov. Mark Sanford said in a statement.

The trust, having completed its stated goals, will be disbanded in the coming months after an audit, Vinson said.