Category Archives: May 2023

Development Issues, May 2023, Trees and Deforestation

Dust Storm in an Incentive Zone 

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by Don Moniak
May 3, 2023

This past Monday a dust storm originating from a Great Southern Homes residential development impacted a small but not insignificant part of North Aiken.

Great Southern Homes is a widespread regional developer specializing in new residential construction. On its website the company describes itself as “one of the Southeast’s leading homebuilders;” and its news section features numerous awards.

Among Great Southern Home’s advertised developments is Portrait Hills, a planned subdivision of 146 homes on ~41 acres in the 1200 block of Edgefield Highway in North Aiken. It is described by the company as follows:

“Welcome to Portrait Hills, Great Southern Homes newest community located in the beautiful city of Aiken. This community features spacious homesites, picturesque wooded views and our most popular, award winning floor plans.”

In November of 2021, Aiken City Council approved incentives for the development for up to $112,000 under the city’s Economic Incentive Program created in 2018. The property has subsequently been clearcut and graded in preparation for the subdivision of 146 homes. The “wooded views” advertised by the company will have to derive from adjacent properties like the picturesque Great Oaks of Aiken Therapeutic Riding Center.

While the economic incentive did not produce the dust storm, the fact that the City of Aiken helped fund the development reflects poorly on the city’s economic incentive program. While the developer has installed a pleasant entrance sign where it has planted some sapling trees and shrubs, no dust abatement measures or signs of the city’s tree preservation policy were evident

The Dust Storm

On May 1, 2023, an unusual dust storm—for a humid region (1)—originating from the clearcut, site-prepped Portrait Hills development (2) swept across the 1200 block of Edgefield Highway (HWY 19 North). The sandy dust blew despite the area being adorned by more than 10 inches of rain since the last week of March.

During the day-long event, a strong westerly wind with gusts greater than 20 miles per hour, not atypical for Aiken spring weather, blew ground and low-level clouds of fine grained sandy dust across the barren site-prepped area, and across Highway 19. 

Visibility on the well-traveled truck and commuter route was negatively impacted; and anyone driving with their windows down was subject to sand blasting the inside of their vehicles. Anyone walking on the well-used sidewalk was subject to respiratory impacts as well as general discomfort.  The sandy waves of dust impacted a recently renovated home, and the historic Northside Barbershop plaza. Workers on the site were subjected to the nearly constant blowing dust. (photos below by Don Moniak, 5/1/23)


If an equally strong wind had been from the north, the Grand Oaks neighborhood, of which Portrait Hills is considered an extension, would have felt the brunt of the sandy dust. If it had been directly from the south, the older neighborhood of Balltown would have felt the brunt of the dusty sand. (below, Aiken County Land Database map)


Aiken County, DHEC, the City of Aiken and its Engineering Department were all notified of the situation, Within ten minutes, the city’s Engineering Department took ownership of the situation and promised to investigate. Any subsequent actions have yet to be reported, and dry conditions and strong winds were predicted through Wednesday. 

Despite strong, persisent winds and dry air, no other dust was visible on HWY 19 from the 1200 block to north of Exit 18 off Interstate 20. The similarly-sized and River’s Crossing subdivision outside city limits, and also in site-prep and early development mode, had a layer of grass and scattered straw protecting the bare soil underneath. (below, photo by Don Moniak, 5/1/23) . River’s Crossing was also mostly nonforested prior to the development.

River’s Crossing subdivision off Hwy 19 and Williams Drive, near Portrait Hills on same day with no dust visible even on dirt roads.


There is one other difference between River’s Crossing and Portrait Hills, which is the latter’s six-figure economic incentive agreement with the City of Aiken:

  • On October 12, 2021, the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC) passed a resolution to recommend that City Council approve an incentive agreement worth up to $112,000 on October 12, 2021. 
  • On November 8, 2021 Aiken City Council approved an ordinance to provide “certain economic incentives’ for the Portrait Hills subdivision, and only identified Great Southern Home’s land development manager Jesse Bray as the developer. The incentives were worth up to $112,000, or half of the anticipated permit fees, business license fees, and utility costs. According to the ordinance, site development was expected to take 9-18 months, and housing construction up to four years. 
Page 1 of Exhibit A of the November 2021 ordinance authorizing the six-figure subsidy.

The stated benefits of the annexed development— like all developments in the program—included increased property tax revenue, increased utility customers, “greater amenities for the city’s residents, and increased tourism. “

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Footnote:

(1) Dust storms are relative to a region. Most dust storm images are from the arid and semi arid Western states, and feature billowing dense massive clouds of dust with almost zero visibility. In more humid regions, heavy dust at a smaller and more localized scale can and has been described as a dust storm, as the photo below of an Illinois duststorm shows.

The differences are akin to wildfires, with the dominant images being from the Western U.S,. But the Southeast is still prone to intense, smaller wildfires that can and have destroyed entire neighborhoods—which the South Carolina Forestry Commission reminds people of annually.



(2) Though not identical image locations, Pictometry images from Aiken County’s land database show the contrast in recent conditions versus current conditions. The top photo is from January to March, 2021 the bottom is dated January, 28, 2023.

Great Southern Homes’ Portrait Hills Webpage lists “Green Spaces” as an amenity.

May 2023, Nature News

The Return of the Chimney Swifts

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By Burt Glover

It is difficult to recall the first species of bird I became aware of as a very young child. If I had to guess, I would most likely choose the chimney swift. Our house had four large chimneys where the swifts nested each year. Some of my earliest memories involve toddling over to the metal coverings on our fireplaces and listening to the chirping of the nestlings above. Playtime outside was frequently put on pause to watch with awe the acrobatics of those little “flying cigars,” dipping and wheeling, and soaring so effortlessly through the skies above – twittering all the while. 

Chimney swifts spend most of the lives “on the wing” — flying as much as 500 miles per day, according to the Wildlife Center of Virginia, and eating upwards of 6,000-12,000 mosquitoes, flies, spiders, beetles and other insects with their somewhat large mouths.

The configuration of their short legs prevents the birds from perching on limbs like other birds, so they remain in perpetual flight. They even take their baths on the wing, belly-flopping on the surface of a pond, then shaking the water through the feathers as they fly away. Their flight stops only when nesting or roosting at night. In compensation for the inability to perch, they have specialized tail feathers and toe nails — similar to woodpeckers — that allow them to cling to vertical surfaces such as the interiors of chimneys, barn silos, and tree hollows.

Chimney swifts are migratory birds, spending their winters in South America. In the springtime, they return to our area and search out a suitable nesting site. In the absence of human habitation, these sites traditionally consisted of abandoned woodpecker nests or in hollow trees in old growth forests. When the forests were cut down, they readily adapted to nesting in chimneys.

Male and female birds gather nesting materials by breaking off twigs in mid-flight, which they glue to the inside wall of a chimney with their saliva to make a ledge-type nest. About halfway through nesting season, this ledge proves to be too small to contain its 4 to 5 chicks, and nestlings must cling to the side of the chimney until they are able to fly.

Downtown Aiken was always the perfect place to indulge in chimney-swift watching. All summer, scores of them could be seen soaring in the skies above. When I worked at the Cinema Theater, I often made a point to sit out on the curb in the evenings and watch them. Beginning in August/September, at the end of nesting season, the swifts would gather into huge flocks, circling over the city — thousands and thousands of them — their intense twittering filling the evening sky. In those last minutes as twilight drew, the massive flock would form into what seemed to be a giant tornado, swirling slowly, ever downward, into the chimneys of the houses somewhere behind Eliot Office Supply. 

Still photos won’t do to capture the experience of watching the evening swifts. A video, this one from Portland, is the next best thing to being there.

Like so many other things in my life, I assumed that the chimney swifts would always be there to see. Since my childhood days, their numbers have decreased everywhere. Hollow trees are scarce, and the chimneys of today are often capped off and/or lined with slippery steel inserts. According to the Audubon Society, chimney swift numbers have been reduced by as much as 53% in the US and 90% in Canada..

Here seems a good place to mention that chimney swifts are a protected species under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 . This designation, in itself, isn’t enough to protect them. Fortunately, there are individuals and organizations working to share information on how to be good neighbors to chimney swifts. A starting point for basic information can be found at this page at the Wildlife Center of Virginia. Another site, which may take extra effort to navigate, is chimneyswift.org which has a wealth of information, including directions for building a chimney swift tower for nesting.

The good news from my neighborhood is that the six to eight chimney swifts that soar the skies over my house returned from their migration this year, right on time, in early April. I often sit in the morning sun just to watch their aerial acrobatics. My house has two chimneys, both of them open to the hope that a pair will find them a suitable place to raise a family.

One more look, this one an over the chimney at the Commerce Building in downtown Raleigh, NC, courtesy of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.

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Contributor Burt Glover became an accidental naturalist during his earliest childhood days exploring the dirt roads, backyards, polo field and barns of the Magnolia-Knox-Mead neighborhood of 1950s Aiken. Birds are his first love, and he can identify an impressive range by song alone. He asserts that he is an observer, not an expert, on the topics of his writings, which range from birds, box turtles, frogs and foraging, to wasps, weeds, weather and beyond.