All posts by donaldmoniak

Aiken County Government, Development Issues, Freedom of Information, House of Raeford Chicken Plant, November 2024

The Chicken Plant Grants 

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According to information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the South Carolina Department of Agriculture (SCDA), Aiken County was awarded a $6 million grant by SCDA for the purpose of helping to develop the proposed House of Raeford chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant. Had it been finalized, the grant would have supplemented a probable $10 million grant from the federal government to House of Raeford. The existence of the Aiken County grant and the details of the federal grant proposal were never disclosed. Had the project proceeded, the proposed House of Raeford plant near Exit 22 would have received $16 million in direct public subsidies in addition to discounted tax, water, and sewer rates.

by Don Moniak
November 16, 2024

Two weeks after Aiken County Council opted not to move forward on a tax incentive package for the House of Raeford chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant, aka Project Sunny, the Aiken Standard published an editorial by South Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers that criticized the Council and took a swipe at Aiken County in general for allowing Project Sunny to fail.

Weathers asserted that “the Aiken community will “miss out on the pride that comes from supporting local farmers,” while further stating that Council Council “let their constituents down in failing to gather all the facts;” and that “I’ve heard a lot of misinformation about this project, and I’m disappointed that council never provided an opportunity for the public to learn the facts and weigh the pros and cons.” 

What Commissioner Weathers neglected to mention is that the Agriculture Department, the House of Raeford, County Council, the City of Aiken, and the Western Carolina Economic Development Partnership kept the public totally in the dark by failing to provide any information on Project Sunny until opposition to the effort emerged and rapidly grew.

Instead, Project Sunny’s “sponsor” was kept secret until it could no longer be hidden. Only then did House of Raeford and its allies in state government mount what turned out to be a belated, and ultimately futile public relations campaign to try to salvage the project—a campaign that began with a “flowery” presentation to Aiken City Council held during a closed-door Executive Session that should have been on the regular meeting agenda and held in full public view.

In retrospect, Weathers’ frustration at Council’s reticence to disclose any of the facts concerning the project, though not his unnecessary barbs, seems a bit rational because prior to any opposition Project Sunny was a sure bet; and a traditionally opaque approval process was the best means towards winning that bet.

This is evidenced by two grant proposals totaling $16 million that were either barely discussed or not discussed at all during the debate. 

First, there was a $10 million grant proposal by House of Raeford in November 2023, assisted by the Agriculture Department, to the federal subsidy program known as the Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program (MPPEP). The existence of a possible $10 million grant was referenced in a WJBF story and an Aiken Standard report, but no details were ever offered.

Second, on February 14, 2024, Aiken County submitted an application for a $6 million state grant to the South Carolina Department of Agriculture’s Growing Agribusiness Fund—which was funded by a $40 million legislative allocation in 2023. The County’s grant proposal, which was never publicly disclosed, included House of Raeford financial data—assets, revenues, profits, and costs—that was absent from the federal grant application.  

The application shows that, contrary to Commissioner Weathers’ assertions, Aiken County government was very well informed about the project details, including water and sewer demands of at least 33.8 million gallons per month—amounts quite similar to the estimates first implied in January 2024 when the City of Aiken sought a generic rate discount for water and sewer use for major users of its utilities.

Aiken County’s grant proposal also displayed knowledge that House of Raeford’s Aiken plant would not only replace its increasingly controversial West Columbia plant, but it would also double the capacity of chickens processed– up to 57 million per year at a rate of up to 1.3 million per week. The doubling of capacity was also known to be dependent upon the creation of 260 new chicken houses to raise broiler chickens, with upwards of 80 new or expanded growers needed to operate the new facilities—a fact that was greatly and inexplicably underreported during the March-April debate period.

Just twelve days after submitting its proposal, Aiken County was awarded the grant by the “Agriculture Agribusiness Infrastructure Incentives Distribution Initiative Panel” during the panel’s Feburary 26, 2024 meeting.

The two grant proposals and the award to Aiken County suggest that the House of Raeford plant was a done deal prior to two unexpected events: a sewer capacity shortfall and a strong public opposition movement—especially from nearby residents.

County Council Vice-Chair Andrew Siders, who, along with County Chair Gary Bunker, were directly lobbied by Governor Henry McMaster (Figure 1) in early April of 2024, would later tell the Aiken Standard that the opposition was “overwhelming,” a sentiment echoed by County Councilman Phil Napier; who represents the district where the plant was proposed to be located.

Figure 1. Emails between state government officials, House of Raeford executive Jantzen Bradley, and lobbyist Tony Denny.
The calls occurred two weeks before the Second Reading of a Fee in Lieu of Taxes (FILOT) Ordinance that would have provided tax rate discounts that can be viewed on Page 17 of the County’s Grant Proposal. The details of the FILOT agreement were never made public during the two months it was in Council’s legislative process. The FILOT agreement failed, at least for one year, after Council opted to not move the Ordinance forward during the Second Reading, which can be heard from a link in The Chicken Plant Tapes. (Email obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.)


The Chicken Plant Location

The two grant applications collectively revealed the location in the northern portion of Aiken County, near I-20’s Exit 22, was based primarily on two factors.

First, it is within 60 miles of most of the company’s existing 80 chicken broiler house growers that supply its current needs.

Second, Aiken County was described in the MEPPA grant application as being “in a rural western/central region of South Carolina, away from major metropolitan areas. This region is represented by rural, underserved, and disenfranchised populations,” (emphasis added) “nearly 13 percent of housing units are vacant,” and the cost of living in Aiken County is lower than that of Lexington County.

The company first settled on a location within Verenes Business Park, which is already zoned for industrial use. As of November 2023, the company had submitted a Letter of Intent (LOI) to purchase the former Avara Pharmaceuticals properties and building on Windham Boulevard.

The site is just south of an undeveloped 146-acre tract owned by the City of Aiken that would have provided a visual screening from the Interstate. However, it is also only a third of a mile upwind from the closest homes in the Taylor Ridge neighborhood, which is composed of quarter to half-million dollar homes on 2-5 acre lots.

The Avara properties total 24.1 acres and the main building is approximately 170,000 square feet, which corresponds to the estimated 165,000+ square foot facility size identified in the County’s grant application, as well as in subsequent reports. The offering price was $12 million, and closing was anticipated for April 2024. 

According to an email from Will Williams of the Western Carolina Economic Development Partnership to a local resident, House of Raeford passed on the Avara property after “they determined they could ‘settle’ but not be able to get exactly what they wanted.” Another issue raised in the Williams email was that “I didn’t want odor nor feathers on Windham Blvd”—legitimate issues raised by chicken slaughterhouse opponents.

By the time the County’s grant application was submitted to SC Department of Agriculture, the location had changed to an 87-acre parcel along East Frontage Road next to the existing Shaw plant. This site is generally upwind from more than 100 homes along Old Camp Long Road—the closest being only 1,000 feet— and at least thirty properties in a newly developed area known as Big Branch Farms, where lot sizes range from 5-25 acres. It was to be three miles generally downwind, but close enough to be of concern, to the Summer Lakes neighborhood and the older Millbrook neighborhood.

Clearly, House of Raeford’s due diligence that led to a conclusion that the “region was rural, underserved, and disenfranchised” was undermined by the fact that the area is increasingly dotted with suburban and exurban developments of Aiken, as well as Augusta and Lexington, within an older mix of farms and mixed-income neighborhoods. In fact, instead of a chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant, a suburban-style subdivision is now planned for the East Frontage Road site.

In its search for a more suitable rural setting than West Columbia, House of Raeford instead chose an area undergoing steady residential growth. Instead of looking at its own demographics research deficiencies, the company and its allies in state government blamed the failure of the project on public “misinformation.”

Avara Plant site, with one-mile downwind radius indicated
East Frontage Road site, with one-mile downwind radius indicated

(Feature photo: Concept design of the exterior of the chicken slaughterhouse and processing plant contained in the County’s grant application).

City Government, Farmers Market - Williamsburg St Project, November 2024, Parks & Recreation

Does the Structure of the New Farmers Market Committee Pose a Bias Against Farmers?

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Aiken City Council created a new Farmers Market Committee in August 2024 to advise city staff on the its operations. The committee will consist of “registered vendors,” and only “registered vendors” are allowed to vote for the committee members. Since Aiken City Council opted not to define a “registered vendor,” City staff has since defined it as one who “has submitted an application, has been approved to sell at the market, and does so at least 18 times in 6 months.” The origin of the definition is unknown.

by Don Moniak
November 16, 2024

On August 25, 1958, the Aiken City Council passed a City Ordinance* that created a Farmers Market Commission; which gave the Commission the authority to operate a Farmers Market in the City of Aiken. The membership back then included the County Agent, the Supervisor of Aiken County, the Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, a member of City Council, a farmer who was a member of The Grange, and two residents of the City who were appointed by City Council.

The Aiken County Farmers Market has been located at Williamsburg Street and Richland Avenue since that time. The property was owned by the South Carolina Department of Transportation until October 2022, at which time ownership of the Farmers Market Parkway and right-of-way was transferred to the City of Aiken.

The Commission existed until sometime in the early 2000’s. There are no historic records of its proceedings in the City’s document repository; nor any record of it having been disbanded. At some point, City staff became the de facto supervisors of the market.

In August 2024, at the urging of staff, Aiken City Council amended the old, unenforced Farmers Market Commission Ordinance with Ordinance 08122024, thus replacing the Commission with a Farmer’s Market Committee and formally transferring operational power to city staff.

The Ordinance (Figure 1) contains one contradiction and lacks some clarity in definitions.

On the one hand, Council created a committee “to advise and regulate a farmers market in the city.” At the same time, the Committee’s authority to regulate is undermined by the provision stating that any vote on a policy matter before it is only a “recommendation to the city staff who oversee the market.” The Committee only has the power to recommend, not regulate.

The lack of clarity regards committee membership—which is composed of seven members who are tasked with meeting four times a year—and the voting powers of vendors.

The only criteria for Committee participation—including nominating, voting, and/or serving—is to be a registered vendor. The Ordinance states:

“The farmers market committee shall consist of seven members who are elected by the registered vendors of the market at the time of the election. One month prior to elections, nominations will take place. The seven members will consist of four farmers, one wholesales, one baker/other and one crafter. Terms will be one year, unless the committee member is no longer a registered vendor of the market.”

Unfortunately, the term “registered vendor” was never defined by Council.

Figure 1: Farmer’s Market Commitee Ordinance passed on August 12, 2024. (click to enlarge)


On Tuesday, November 12, 2024, Aiken County resident and Farmers Market vendor Vicki Simons addressed City Council— during the open public comment period of its regular meeting—with concerns over the inconsistency between the actual Ordinance and its implementation as it pertains to “registered vendors.”

Her speech (viewable at the 44:00 mark) was as follows:

“Good evening, Mayor Milner and members of Aiken City Council. My name is Vicki Simons. I live north of Aiken in Aiken County. I am a 100% Grower/Producer of microgreens, who first began selling produce at the Aiken Farmers Market in 2019.

My posts on Facebook prove that I am a strong advocate of the Aiken Farmers Market and my fellow vendors, particularly those who sell healthy food.

In June of this year, I:

— expressed my support for changing the City’s ordinance regarding creating a “farmers market committee”; and
— asked what the term ‘registered’ means when it comes to vendors who can be elected to the Farmers Market Committee.

A City employee answered my question that night, in somewhat vague terms.**

Council adopted the change to the Farmers Market Committee Code this past August.

Please note that there is no detail in the Code about the criteria of a ‘registered vendor.’

Last week, I received from a City employee an email stating that nominations for the “farmers market committee” could be submitted during certain hours from November 11 – 22. In that same email, there was a paragraph that stated the following:

“Criteria: A registered vendor is a vendor who has submitted an application, has been approved to sell at the market, and does so at least 18 times in 6 months.
“Individuals elected to the committee who no longer meet the registered vendor requirement shall resign.
“Individuals not meeting the registered vendor requirement cannot vote.”

I asked the City employee from where this limitation came. No answer has come yet. I am extremely concerned that these new, undocumented “criteria” may restrict:

— Both those who can be nominated for the Farmers Market Committee;
— And those who may vote for Farmers Market Committee nominees.

Again, the criteria states that a vendor had to be approved to sell at the market ‘at least 18 times in 6 months.’

The criteria do not state which 6 months. What if the 6 months under consideration is outside the growing season?

As a year-round vendor at the Aiken Farmers Market, I know of only 3 vendors of non- egg and non-meat grown produce — other than myself — who are also there year-round. If a vendor sells only once a week, 18 times represents 18 weeks — or a time frame of about 4-1/2 months. If a farmer has a growing season that is shorter than 4-1⁄2 months, why should he/she be removed from consideration of being on the Farmers Market Committee?

Some local farmers have been doing business at the Aiken Farmers Market for many years. In my opinion, they have gained experience and knowledge that I believe must not be discounted by the additional criteria stated in the email.

I am also concerned that these new criteria may lean toward being an “ex post facto law.’ (Editor’s note: An ex post facto law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences or status of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law).

Let us make sure that we abide by the irrefutable leadership law called “The Law of Navigation,” so that in charting the course for the Aiken Farmers Market Committee, we highly value local farmers.

With the Council’s permission, I can read a questionnaire* that I wrote, which I believe would provide more structure to the Aiken Farmers Market Committee nomination process than a blank canvas.

Do you have any questions?”

Following her speech, the only comment from Council came from Councilwoman Kay Brohl, who stated, in part:

“My colleagues, correct me if I am wrong but I think when we talked about this, what we wanted to be sure was to include our local farmers and not exclude them. If you are a farmer that doesn’t have irrigation, and your crop fails — like when we’ve had a month with no rain, or we had the deluge — if you have tomatoes or certain crops, you’re not going to have any, so you’re not going to be able to come and bring something to the market. So I think she makes a very valid point because our whole gist was to just make sure we included our local farmers.”

However, no other Councilmembers nor City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh offered any followup to Ms. Brohl’s concerns.

No action was taken to address the seemingly arbitrary nature of city staff’s definition of a registered Farmers Market vendor; a definition that clearly has the potential to exclude longtime vendors whose market season might not be six months long—most notably farmers—from participation in the Committee.

Council failed to ask about the origin of the new and improvised definition of “registered vendor,” and has so far opted to allow city staff to amend an ordinance without Council approval.

Since there is no allowance for more than one election a year, the removal of two farmer representatives from the Committee could be disruptive to its proceedings; and even result in farmers temporarily moving from majority representation to minority representation—thus undermining Council’s intent in practice as well as theory.

Footnotes

*Photos of the 1980 Farmer’s Market Commission Ordinance, with reference to the 1958 Ordinance. (click to enlarge).

** The minutes for the June 10, 2024 Council meeting reflect that the “vague” answer to the question was as follows:

“Eric Gordon, Tourism Manager, stated registered is an ambiguous term. He said he was looking at this as someone who is paid to sell at the Market and is coming regularly at the Market. They pay, but they also have to be attending. He said that was his definition of registered.” (Page 14).

***The proposed questionnaire can be found here.

November 2024, Savannah River Site

DOE’s 2037 Deadlines for SRS: Realistic or Illusory?

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by Don Moniak
November 12, 2024

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS) has two major milestones to achieve by 2037. One is legally binding, the other is a commitment that remains negotiable.

Surplus Weapons Plutonium

DOE is legally bound to removing 9.5 metric tons of surplus military plutonium to another state. While any state will do, the plan is to ship the plutonium in a diluted waste form to the underground transuranic waste dump in New Mexico known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).

This commitment is enshrined in the $600 million Settlement Agreement between the State of South Carolina and the federal government; more commonly known as “The Plutonium Settlement.”

Any failure of DOE/SRS to remove all or part of the 9.5 metric tons* of surplus plutonium (Pu) metals and powders will trigger new financial penalties that could be worth billions of dollars to South Carolina. The potential penalties involve two formulas.

First, the percentage of the 9.5 tons remaining on January 1, 2037 will be multiplied by $1.5 billion. Thus, five tons remaning could yield the state $7.5 billion, if the agreement is enforced.

Second, $1 million per day, but only up to $100 million per year, will be awarded to the State for any plutonium not removed after January 1, 2037; and for each year thereafter.

However, the loophole is that the agreement cannot be enforced until 2042 if DOE/SRS has removed more than half, or 4.75 MT, of surplus Pu by 2037.

The surplus Pu is currently being converted to a more stable waste form via a process called “dilute and dispose.” Plans to increase production through the development of a second glovebox processing line remain as tentative as the funding that is required—in this case upwards of $880 million.

As reported in Surplus Plutonium Disposition Timeline, in April 2024, DOE officials could not answer whether it will meet the 2037 deadline, telling the South Carolina Nuclear Advisory Council that “we will have to get back to you.”

Even when the current rate of processing is coupled with a scheduled, but tentative, increase in processing, DOE/SRS could still end up seven or more years behind schedule.

High Level Radioactive “Liquid Waste” Commitments.

Figure 1. Schematic of the radioactive high level “liquid” waste at SRS.
From Liquid Waste Program: Risk Reduction and Waste Removal Update.

The same uncertainties as the surplus plutonium program exist with the processing of the site’s vast quantity of unstable, high-level radiochemical waste—commonly and kindly referred to by the public relations euphemism “liquid waste”—into more stable waste forms.

DOE/SRS is committed, via a Federal Facilities Agreement with the the State of South Carolina, to complete the processing of the remaining 33.4 million gallons of “liquid” radiochemical waste currently stored (Figure 1 above) in massive underground storage tanks by 2037. This commitment is not legally binding and the deadline can be extended, again. No fines are triggered by a failure to meet the deadline.

While DOE presents 2037 as a hard target, it remains an estimate dependent upon both future funding and the technical and logistical difficulties associated with the waste processing.

According to a September 13, 2024, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) report, DOE’s waste processing contractor, Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC), only has a fifty-percent confidence level in their waste processing predictive models.

This news arrived only two months after a presentation to the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) contained a major inconsistency regarding the 2037 deadline.

During the July 29, 2024 CAB meeting, SRMC presented a powerpoint slide indicating a 2037 “end state of completing the clean-up of the high level liquid waste at SRS by 2037 (on track).” (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Slide shown at the 1:18:00 mark during the DOE/SRS presentation to the SRS CAB
on on the radioactive liquid waste program at SRS’ F and H areas.
Figure 3: The slide provided in the hard copy handout, which is also the final version on the SRS CAB website.


However, the 2037 reference was removed from the provided hard copy handouts to the CAB members and attending citizens. In the hard copy provided prior to the meeting (Figure 3)—which is also what is available in the final version of the altered presentation on the SRS CAB website— the statement “SRMC is contracted by DOE to achieve an end state of completing the clean-up of the high-level liquid waste by 2037 (on track)” was removed.

Why was this sentence censored from the final, cleared document?

According to former DOE External Affairs Director Amy Boyette, all SRS CAB presentations must be cleared not only by DOE officials, but by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In this case the original powerpoint presentation was left unmodified while the final document matched the OMB’s cleansing.

Savannah River Site Watch Executive Director Tom Clements, who has followed the issue for decades and who spotted the discrepancy, describes the omission as a sign that the federal government is not financially committed to the 2037 date:

“It turns out that OMB was right to raise a flag about the suspect 2037 high-level waste tank closure date, which I haven’t trusted since SRS started pushing that date.  SRS tank-closure dates always get pushed into the future and costs always go up, which make contractors happy but prolong envionmental risks. With NNSA having more control at SRS, I’m worried we might see cleanup programs cut back, with money transferred to the program to make plutonium pits for uneeded new nuclear warheads. Such a step to reduce the cost of the environmental liability at SRS would undermine the public’s national environmental security and must be opposed.”


Footnote

* According to DOE, in 2019 there were 11.5 metric tons of plutonium at SRS (Figure 4), meaning that up to 2.0 metric tons (MT) will still remain in storage even if the plutonium settlement goal is reached. Whereas SRS has in the past stored up to 1.0 MT of nonsurplus weapons plutonium, that exact amount is unknown today.

Figure 4. Rounded plutonium inventory at SRS K-Area facility.
From K-Area Pu Down Blending Overview and Update, presented to SRS CAB in July 2023.
The subsequent presentation was titled Downblend Operations Improvement Initiative .
(click to enlarge).


Previous articles pertaining to surplus plutonium and “liquid waste.”

Offsite Insights 2022-1 discusses the dilute and dispose program and the rate of plutonium waste processing.

Feds Propose 27 More Tons of Plutonium at SRS details the latest environmental impact statement (EIS) involving the future of plutonium within nuclear weapon components known as “pits.”

“Appalling and Abysmal” describes the Record of the Decision for the latest EIS.

Surplus Plutonium Disposition: “We will have to get back to you” chronicles the April 2024 SC Nuclear Advisory Council meeting and provides and estimate of the future rate of surplus plutonium processing to a diluted waste form.

The DOE-DHEC-EPA Radioactive Waste Public Relations Collaboration details both the status of the Federal Facility Agreement and the difficulties with hydrogen during waste stabilization.





City Government, In the Courts, November 2024, Project Pascalis 2024

City of Aiken Ordered to Produce Project Pascalis Records.

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A Circuit Court Judge has ordered the City of Aiken to comply with the rules of discovery and produce all documents related to Project Pascalis. (see previous, related story Former AMDC Commissioners Seek Full Disclosure of Pascalis Documents.)

by Don Moniak
November 8, 2024
Updated November 14, 2024
Updated March 4, 2024

In early May of this year, Plaintiffs in the Blake et al vs City of Aiken et al lawsuit, aka as the “Pascalis lawsuit,” filed a Motion to Compel all records pertaining to Project Pascalis. The Motion was submitted less than four months after Interrogatories and a Request to Produce Documents were sent to Defendant City of Aiken.

In a subsequent July 5th Memorandum of Law in Support of the Motion to Compel, Plaintiffs argued that the City “has not even tried” to respond to discovery requests—a statement supported by the fact that a mere nine records had been produced by the City—six of which were already public and one of which had been privately published in late 2022 after it had been made public.

The City’s stiff resistance to the discovery process included a few nebulous tactics; such as frequent non-specific referrals to the its document repository—essentially telling Plaintiffs to find relevant records within an expansive public domain; all while refusing to provide nonpublic records.*

Another tactic was to refer Plaintiffs to another party for documents, described in the Motion as “Go ask someone else.”

Due to the City’s failure to adhere to rules of discovery, on October 14, 2024, State Circuit Judge Maite Murphy ordered the City of Aiken to answer all submitted questions and produce all requested records; as well as produce a log of all documents deemed as potentially privileged and confidential.

Included in the order are instructions to release, within ten days, all requested records that “are not privileged and reasonably calculated to lead to relevant evidence,” and conduct a broad electronic search, dating back to August 1, 2019, for fifteen key words or phrases; including “Project Pascalis,” “Ray Massey,” “WTC,” and “Hotel Aiken.” In the process, The City cannot “refer to another party as having those documents as an answer to these requests.” 

Judge Murphy’s order nearly coincided with the October 17th Motion for a Protective Order Authorizing Testimony and Documents filed by Attorneys for former AMDC Commissioners Keith Wood and Chris Verenes. That Motion seeks the release of 120 documents listed in a “privilege log” that might be classified as privileged attorney-client work product.

Even without the privilege log documents, Wood and Verenes have already produced 1,318 pages of documents related to Project Pascalis—more than 10X the volume of records produced to date by the City of Aiken. (Because the 1,318 pages of records have yet to be placed in the public domain via a court filing, a FOIA request has been submitted to the City of Aiken for their release).

A hearing on the Woods/Verenes Motion to release records listed in the “privilege log” is scheduled for December 5, 2024, at the Aiken County Courthouse.** To date, attorneys for the City have not filed a response.

These latest developments will be topics of discussion at an Aiken City Council closed-door Executive Session this coming Tuesday, November 12th. The session is being held to receive legal advice and a legal briefing specific to the Pascalis lawsuit.

The Executive Session will be a test of Mayor Teddy Milner’s straightforward campaign platform of increased “accountability and transparency.” After years of stonewalling efforts to get to the heart of the Pascalis project workings, Mayor Milner and the rest of Council have the opportunity to quit playing information games— as the City did with Freedom of Information Act requests***—and comply with South Carolina’s rules of discovery in civil cases.

(Update: The prepared order, which was provided in the earlier version, was not the signed order until November 13th. The City of Aiken has until November 23rd to comply with the order.)

Update March 4, 2024:

A followup to https://aikenchronicles.com/2024/11/08/city-of-aiken-ordered-to-produce-project-pascalis-records/ 

In regard to the Project Pascalis lawsuit, a “Stipulated Order Governing the Disclosure of Privileged Information” was recently posted in the case index at sccourts.org 

The order governs the production of Project Pascalis documents, which the City of Aiken claims to exceed 121,000. 

Because the City’s review extended beyond the deadline to produce documents that was ordered in November 2024, an agreement was reached that will “allow the Plaintiffs to gain access to the Subject Documentation as soon as possible” while allowing “the City to preserve all privileges that may apply to the Subject Documentation.” 

The way it will work is the City of Aiken will designate material as being “under review,” those documents will be provided to the Plaintiffs within two days of this latest order—meaning the documents should have been produced by now.  All documents received will be treated by Plaintiffs as confidential until a final review is completed within 90 days. 

If the City of Aiken deems that a document provided should be considered privileged, it can “clawback” the document. Once the City issues its opinion, the Plaintiffs can challenged it within seven days by filing a Motion to Compel. If there is a successful challenge, then the materials may be used in filings and depositions. 

It appears in this case that the City has the upper hand and the cost of the burden of proof regarding privilege will be borne by the Plaintiffs. The City can err on the side of caution and/or resistance and the Plaintiffs have only seven days to file a Motion to Compel challenge. 

The order is available at : 

https://publicindex.sccourts.org/Aiken/PublicIndex/PIImageDisplay.aspx?ctagency=02002&doctype=D&docid=1739386875725-069&HKey=54686874894877751081011047467897510411698865611584785052837710112010476896710976103534353848111548

Figure 1: Efforts to obtain key information pertaining to Project Pascalis.


Footnotes

* In fact, the website for one set of relevant records in the public domain, that of the Aiken Municipal Development Commission, was surreptitiously removed by City officials sometime this past summer.

** The Courthouse is at the intersection of Park Avenue and Chesterfield Street. The Hearing is scheduled to be held in Courtroom 4. It is the 8th of 14 Motions scheduled to be heard. The first hearing is at 9:30 am. Each hearing lasts for 15-45 minutes. Check the Civil Roster for any updates.

*** Previous stories related to the City of Aiken’s “information games:”

The City of Aiken’s Information Games, Part One; which documented the effort to charge three different parties an identical $5312 involving exactly 332 hours of labor in response to three distinct, separate FOIA requests pertaining to Project Pascalis over a two month period from March 18 to May 12, 2022. 

The City of Aiken’s Information Games, Part Two; which documented the City’s silent removal in October 2022 of a key Project Pascalis document from the public record.

The City of Aiken’s Information Games, Part Three; which documented the redaction of legal invoices that had already been publicly released in nonredacted form—including censoring the very term Project Pascalis.

Three Missing Pages. See Footnote 1 for a discussion of how the City brazenly attempted to charge a $599 FOIA fee for what turned out to be a single document.

Keeping Up Appearances… ; which documented how the AMDC’s public version of the $10 million bond issuance for the Pascalis properties omitted key sections from the entire version.

Aiken County, Aiken County Government, October 2024, Planning

The Resiliency Element

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The Aiken County Comprehensive Plan, disasters, and near-disasters.

by Don Moniak
October 18, 2024

This year, Aiken County is required by law to develop a Comprehensive Plan that serves as a guiding document for development and redevelopment.

Such plans are mandated by Section 6-29-510 of the South Carolina Local Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994, which states that local Planning Commissions are “to maintain the process that will result in the systematic preparation and continual re-evaluation and updating of those elements considered critical, necessary, and desirable to guide the development and redevelopment of its area of jurisdiction.”

Prior to 2020, plans had to be written to address, at a minimum, nine key variables, aka “elements.” (1) Those were, and remain, population, economic development, natural and cultural resources, community facilities, housing, land use, transportation, and priority investments.

In 2020, the tenth element of resiliency was added, which in this case is perhaps best defined by FEMA as “the ability to prepare for threats and hazards, adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from adverse conditions and disruptions;” an understated way of describing both widespread and localized disasters and near-disasters.

This definition is perhaps the most pertinent because, under state law, the resiliency element requires that planners consider the impacts of natural phenomena that can create “natural hazards.” Specifically, the law states, in part, that:

“A resiliency element considers the impacts of flooding, high water, and natural hazards on individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, economic development, public infrastructure and facilities, and public health, safety and welfare. This element includes an inventory of existing resiliency conditions, promotes resilient planning, design and development, and is coordinated with adjacent and relevant jurisdictions and agencies..”

The Aiken County Plan and Resiliency

The operative word for comprehensive plans is “guide.” The plans are not legally binding, but intended to provide guidance for future decision-making, i.e., the approval or disapproval of a developer’s plans.

Once a draft plan is completed, public hearings must be held prior to the plan’s approval by County Council. According to the 2014-2024 Aiken County Comprehensive Plan, the Aiken County Planning Commission (ACPC) held a public hearing on December 18, 2014, and that was followed by a 12-month public comment period and public input sessions.

The County’s process for its 2025-2035 plan is moving at a similar pace, with a schedule for completion and approval in mid to late 2025.

According to the minutes from the ACPC’s May 2024 public meeting, the status of the plan was discussed during the “New Business” portion of the agenda (2). Four months later, the early timeframe (Figure 1) presented at the May meeting evening had still not been realized—the ACPC had yet to hold a public meeting to discuss the issue.

As the process moves along, the opportunity to delve into the issue of resiliency planning and response to natural and man-made disasters has been presented at a time when the lessons learned from emergency preparations for, and post-disaster response to Hurricane Helene will be fresh in the minds of Aiken County residents. The next year is an opportune time to discuss the issues posed by natural and man-made hazards—which currently are only addressed in the County’s thorough, though obscure, Emergency Operations Plan.

Figure 1. Early timeline for preparing Aiken County’s Comprehensive Plan for the next 10 years. A Freedom of Information Act request has been filed to determine who the consultant is, when that consultancy contract was procured, and what interviews, if any, have been conducted.


The Resiliency Element

Aiken County is susceptible to numerous natural hazards, including tornadoes, tropical storms/hurricanes, ice storms, major rainfall events that can trigger flooding and dam failures, severe drought, and wildfires—all hazards that can be chronically exacerbated by human development. The County is also vulnerable to man-made disasters such as a radiological dispersal accident at the Savannah River Site or its neighbor, the Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant

In the past ten years, the County has experienced two major, widespread weather events—-the Ice Storm of 2014 and 2024’s Hurricane Helene. Both incidents resulted in catastrophic damage to the electrical grid, with critical facilities and more than a hundred thousand residents losing electrical power. The amount of debris generated by the storms overwhelmed local and state-wide capabilities.

These consequences led to the federal designation of a regional disaster area that included Aiken County; thus enabling the County to receive FEMA funds to alleviate the cost of its responses, most notably debris removal. However, FEMA does not come to the rescue for lesser, more localized events whose severity levels do not reach the threshold beyond which the County and State of South Carolina can adequately respond; and even FEMA funding requires some accompanying cost sharing that provides a financial incentive to mitigate disaster response needs.

The County can also experience man-made hazards that can result in disasters and near-disasters. Most notable is the Graniteville train wreck of 2005 that produced a plume of chlorine gas; which triggered an evacuation of more than 5,000 people, killed nine, and caused long-term health impacts for hundreds of residents. This accident is still a top-of-the-mind event, as the Aiken County Emergency Management Plan identifies a railroad accident as “likely” to be “catastrophic;” and thus it is assigned the highest disaster rating of 9 in the disaster rating summary (Figure 2).

While these events may remain prominent because of their scale and breadth of the events, other disastrous and disrupting events have occurred. These include the 2009 tornado that tore across 35 miles of terrain from Columbia County to New Ellenton, tornadoes in the Windsor and Monetta areas in 2022, record-breaking rainfall and associated dam failures in Eastern Aiken County—and across the state—during the 2015 Hurricane Joaquin-related, thousand-year rainfall event referred to as the “fire hose” phenomenon, and the Gateway Fire in May 2019 that caused a complete shutdown of Interstate 20 and the evacuation of dozens of residents.

Figure 2. Aiken County Disaster Rating Summary. From the Aiken County Emergency Operations Plan. The plan states that Aiken County Emergency Management will “prepare for all possible events, but place the greatest emphasis on the most dangerous events that are also most likely to occur.” Severe drought that can result in water shortages is one category that is overlooked. (Click to enlarge)


Comprehensive Planning in Other Jurisdictions

In 2022, the North Augusta City Council approved its 2021-2031 Comprehensive Plan, but failed to include the resiliency element—even though much of the City’s growth has occurred in the Savannah River flood plain, and tornadoes and other extreme weather, most recently Hurricane Helene, have struck the town.

In 2023, the City of Aiken did make an effort to address the newly identified resiliency element in its amended, five-year update to its Comprehensive Plan. In the final document, city planners devoted two pages (217-218) to resiliency. The chapter began by stating that little guidance is currently available from the State of South Carolina to address these issues.

Compare these first two local efforts to Lexington County’s 2022-2032 Comprehensive Plan. In it, twelve pages of detailed information were devoted to the resiliency element chapter (3), and thirteen concrete measures to be taken were later identified in the implementation chapter.

While the emphasis was on mitigating flood risks and responding to flood events that have plagued, and continue to threaten, the County, the plan also identified ice storms, hurricanes, and man-made hazards such as the risk of a radiation dispersal accident at nearby Summer Nuclear Power Plant—although no mitigating measures were identified yet for the latter.

The Lexington County plan also includes a much fuller identification of the various agencies and jurisdictions, and identifies the means to achieve greater resiliency, such as treating “ lowlands as natural assets,” and “preserving natural areas.”

Florence County, which is also comparable in size to Aiken County, also addressed resiliency in its plan. The County provided a detailed snapshot of the extreme natural events experienced in the past 50-60 years—a table (Figure 3) that provides an insight into the breadth and frequency of natural hazards.

Figure 3: Natural hazards experienced in Florence County over the past half-century. (Click to enlarge)


Aiken County has the opportunity to delve into the resiliency element in a similarly broad and deep manner as other counties, and in a way that could greatly heighten citizen awareness of how risks can be mitigated and how responses can be better streamlined. The planning process will likely follow an internal review of how the County’s Emergency Management response corresponded to its operations plan during the recent Hurricane Helene (Figure 4) disaster, and the ongoing response to that event—including such prominent issues such as information availability and dissemination, the provision of emergency shelters, and the timeliness of debris removal from our roadsides.

Figure 4. Hurricane Helene storm path, 6 a.m., February 27th. According to the Aiken County Emergency Operations Plan, a hurricane is considered “possible” in Aiken County and has a disaster rating of 4–the same as an earthquake and less than a flood. Prior to Hurricane Helene, Aiken County residents were more accustomed to hosting evacuees from the Coast, not experiencing hurricane force winds first-hand.



Footnotes

(1) The law states the following:

“A local comprehensive plan must include, but not be limited to, the following planning elements:

A population element “which considers historic trends and projections, household numbers and sizes, educational levels, and income characteristics.”

An economic development element “which considers labor force and labor force characteristics, employment by place of work and residence, and analysis of the economic base.”

A natural resources element “which considers coastal resources, slope characteristics, prime agricultural and forest land, plant and animal habitats, parks and recreation areas, scenic views and sites, wetlands, and soil types. Where a separate board exists pursuant to this chapter, this element is the responsibility of the existing board.”

A cultural resources element “which considers historic buildings and structures, commercial districts, residential districts, unique, natural, or scenic resources, archaeological, and other cultural resources. Where a separate board exists pursuant to this chapter, this element is the responsibility of the existing board.”

A community facilities element “which considers water supply, treatment, and distribution; sewage system and wastewater treatment; solid waste collection and disposal, fire protection, emergency medical services, and general government facilities; education facilities; and libraries and other cultural facilities.”

A housing element “which considers location, types, age, and condition of housing, owner and renter occupancy, and affordability of housing. This element includes an analysis to ascertain nonessential housing regulatory requirements, as defined in this chapter, that add to the cost of developing affordable housing but are not necessary to protect the public health, safety, or welfare and an analysis of market-based incentives that may be made available to encourage the development of affordable housing, which incentives may include density bonuses, design flexibility, and streamlined permitting processes. The planning commission must solicit input for this analysis from homebuilders, developers, contractors, and housing finance experts when developing this element.”

A land use element which “considers existing and future land use by categories, including residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, forestry, mining, public and quasi-public, recreation, parks, open space, and vacant or undeveloped.”

A transportation element that “considers transportation facilities, including major road improvements, new road construction, transit projects, pedestrian and bicycle projects, and other elements of a transportation network. This element must be developed in coordination with the land use element, to ensure transportation efficiency for existing and planned development.”

A priority investment element that “analyzes the likely federal, state, and local funds available for public infrastructure and facilities during the next ten years, and recommends the projects for expenditure of those funds during the next ten years for needed public infrastructure and facilities such as water, sewer, roads, and schools.”

The resiliency element that “considers the impacts of flooding, high water, and natural hazards on individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, economic development, public infrastructure and facilities, and public health, safety and welfare. This element includes an inventory of existing resiliency conditions, promotes resilient planning, design and development, and is coordinated with adjacent and relevant jurisdictions and agencies. “

(2) The May 21, 2024 agenda did not identify the Comprehensive Plan as being a New Business agenda item. There was no public notice that the plan was even to be discussed. This was arguably a violation, at least in the spirit if not the letter, of the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act. SC FOIA mandates that agendas be published within 24 hours of a meeting and that any changes in the agenda be made at the beginning of the meeting and documented. The plan was not on the agenda, it was added to the agenda with no notice and no Motion to do so.

(3). Lexington County also added a public safety element and an implementation plan, and divided natural and cultural resources into separate chapters to create a thirteen-chapter plan—three more issue categories than required by the law.

Additional Resources

GovPilot.com: How Local Governments Build Resilient Communities.

The Beaufort County Comprehensive Plan considers “resiliency in the face of a changing coastline,” one of the only plans that even alludes to the impacts of climate change, which drove the inclusion of the “resiliency element” into comprehensive planning—without mentioning the term “climate change.”

The FEMA National Resilience Guideline.

Feature Photo: A unique specimen of Longleaf Pine. The ~75-year-old tree appears to have been damaged in the ice storm that occurred in March, 2004. After the top was broken, it developed multiple tops but no cohesive structure. The tree was resilient to a harsh event, but still did not fully recover.

As a species, Longleaf Pine is generally much more resilient than the more prevalent Loblolly Pine; being better adapted to higher fire intensity, hail, high winds, and other phenomena.

The photo was chosen because the issue of forest cover and species composition in forestlands and urban forests could be at the forefront of near-term discussions relating to resiliency; which is an issue to also be addressed in future stories.

The Aiken Chronicles welcomes all letters and columns devoted to the Aiken County Comprehensive Plan and any other issues of concern.