South Carolina: Rising sea level big concern

CHARLESTON, S.C. – Global warming and a rise in sea levels could dramatically affect South Carolina’s coast, according to scientists and environmental officials meeting at a conference in Charleston this week.

The rising ocean is “going to shave off a ton of landscape along the coast,” which could drown marshes that act as buffers for storm surge, raising the likelihood of major flooding when the next hurricane hits, said Jim Morris, marine studies professor at the University of South Carolina and director of its Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences.

Morris was at the Southeast Regional Workshop on The Nation’s Coasts, hosted by the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. The organization wants to help communities deal with rising sea levels associated with global warming.

The state’s beach management law calls for a gradual retreat of new development from the seashore, but building pressures continue from Cherry Grove to Hilton Head Island, said Braxton Davis, a scientist with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control’s coastal office.

AP