Tag Archives: Department of Health and Environmental Control
Human waste may end oyster harvesting on the May River. Can Bluffton clean it up?
Larry Toomer’s business depends on the May River. On a cold January morning, he stood on the boat ramp outside the Bluffton Oyster Co. with a paper cup of steaming gas station coffee in hand. A lifetime of wrestling shrimping nets has left him with a sturdy build. His rose-colored face is in stark contrast with his ghost-white hair. Behind him, dense clouds of powdery fog swallowed the river, giving his shrimp trawler the illusion of flight. The well-worn ship is easily two stories tall. “Daddy’s Girls” is painted in black-and-blue block lettering on the side. Named for his three daughters, the trawler has become the unofficial town seal. When a home is on a septic system, he said, everything that is flushed down the drain goes into a tank below the house. The solids are filtered out and held in the tank. The liquids go into a drain field below. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Toomer said, elaborating on the path of human excrement. “Every day, right out the toilet.” >click to read< 15:41
S.C. police body cam funds go to all — including oyster officers
After a bystander’s video last year showed a white North Charleston police officer shooting and killing a fleeing, unarmed black man, widespread outrage spurred South Carolina lawmakers to vote in favor of police body cameras, and to come up with $5.8 million to pay for cameras and data storage. Among the top recipients of the limited cash is the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. Its $135,100 grant will outfit its 32 armed officers in the divisions of drug control, shellfish monitoring and investigating environmental crimes such as illegal dumping, said agency spokesman Robert Yanity. State Sen. Greg Hembree said he knows “it seems funny” to put cameras on the officers who oversee shellfish harvesting. Read the story here 10:39
