The Statehouse was the scene for almost four hours of discussion Wednesday on the topic of helping South Carolina farmers while preserving the state's rivers, with particular emphasis on the Edisto River's importance to dozens of Aiken County farmers.
"It was a very civil conversation. Everybody got their say," said S.C. Rep. Bill Taylor, R-Aiken, whose district includes most of Aiken County. "Everybody who wanted to talk, talked."
The legislative hearing touched on questions of how much surface water some of the state's largest farms should be allowed to extract for irrigation, and the questions have sparked "a conversation that needs to be had," Taylor said of Wednesday's exchange.
"I understand there's emotion on both sides - those that want legislation to restrict the pulling of large amounts of water from our rivers, and then there are many farmers who oppose any kind of restriction."
An amendment has been proposed that would impose restrictions on anyone who is applying to withdraw 3 million gallons or more of surface water in the course of a year. That amendment, however, is "hung up" in the agricultural subcommittee, unlikely to see any action this year, and will go the full agricultural committee in 2016, said Wagener businessman Doug Busbee, who has been a reform advocate.
Among other things, the amendment would require applicants to provide public notice of their proposal, require a minimum in-stream flow, and also mandate period reviews of the permit itself, with the Department of Natural Resources taking an active role in the review.
South Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers, who attended the discussion Wednesday, recalled "a lot of passion in the room, from a lot of people who came from different perspectives."
One of the upcoming challenges, Weathers said, will be to acquire "good, solid information" that can be used to make reliable predictions about water availability around the state 20 to 40 years from now, to help avoid circumstances such as those facing California right now, with major water restrictions coming into play.
"We get passionate in South Carolina," Weathers said. "That's what I heard in the room yesterday, and I was glad to hear it. I do think the discussion has brought the issue to a point where it will demand our attention.
"When we have the information that we need, that we can base some long-range planning around, all of this heated rhetoric that's going on will serve a purpose that will demand our attention on behalf of the next generations of South Carolina farmers and South Carolina in general," the commissioner said.
Busbee confirmed that "a number of concerned farmers" took part in Wednesday's discussion.
He described himself as taking strong exception to the concept of "safe yield" as a basis for determining how much water should be allowed for extraction because the current formula is "very flawed," he said.
"What we don't want to do is over-allocate our resources so our farmers won't have water," Busbee said. "We're constantly seeing expansion of these giant farms, and we don't want to see our most precious resource over-allocated. That's the bottom line."
Bill Bengtson has worked for the Aiken Standard since 1996.