The South Carolina Environmental Law Project, a non-profit, public interest law firm, announced today that that a challenge has been filed to the landfill permit issued for the Rabbit Hill Class 2 landfill in Horse Creek Valley. Read the entirety of the press release below:
AIKEN, S.C. — On Friday, August 16, on behalf of the nonprofit Friends of Horse Creek Valley, the South Carolina Environmental Law Project filed a challenge in Administrative Law Court to a landfill permit issued by the Department of Environmental Services (formerly part of the Department of Health and Environmental Control) for a Class 2 landfill located in the small community of Burnettown, east of North Augusta in Aiken County.
Hilltop, the permit applicant, currently operates a 6.5-acre construction and demolition landfill in another part of Aiken County. As that small landfill nears capacity, Hilltop has developed plans for a new 293-acre landfill called Rabbit Hill to be sited in the Horse Creek Valley area, adjacent to an old, closed landfill – an existing EPA-designated Superfund site – and Jefferson Elementary School.
The Department of Environmental Services issued the permit on July 17 as a “replacement” for the existing 6.5-acre landfill, a designation which significantly eases the permitting process and burden. Without these loopholes, the new landfill could not and would not have been approved.
“Hilltop’s new mega-sized facility would serve no benefit to our surrounding community,” said Courtney Crafton, a representative from Friends of Horse Creek Valley. “We would be forced to deal with every negative impact for the opportunity for one company to thrive. We want Horse Creek Valley to be given the opportunity to prosper in a way that benefits all residents and future generations.”
Horse Creek Valley (also known as Midland Valley) is a section of Aiken County comprised of several small communities including Burnettown, Bath, Langley and Clearwater. The valley is known for both its natural beauty and equestrian culture and for being an epicenter of dirty, polluting industries and past environmental disasters. An astounding nine EPA-designated Superfund sites – designated as some of the most polluted, toxic sites in the nation – are located within the four-mile stretch encompassing these communities, as well as several existing landfills and dumps.
“As a South Carolinian and someone who has deep roots in the Aiken area, I understand firsthand the challenges faced by residents of Horse Creek Valley,” said Madison Martin, a staff attorney at the South Carolina Environmental Law Project. “This is not simply a legal battle; it’s a fight for the heart and soul of a community. To allow another landfill in this area is a blatant disregard for the health and well-being of its residents.”
A successful outcome to this permit challenge would result in cumulative environmental benefits, not just for the surrounding community, but for communities across the state that are at risk of having their health, environment and quality of life diminished by permit loopholes like this one.
For residents of Horse Creek Valley, reversal of DES’s decision would have far-reaching positive consequences. Residents have been desperate for relief from the excessive, cumulative burden of decades of pollution in the communities where they live, work and play.
“The Friends of Horse Creek Valley are grateful beyond words to the South Carolina Environmental Law Project for stepping in to protect and broadcast our community’s valid apprehensions concerning the Rabbit Hill Class 2 Landfill,” said Crafton. “We wish to move our community in a forward flourishing direction rather than backwards by allowing yet another dump site directly by our homes and schools. When is enough, enough?”
“We look forward to challenging this permit in Administrative Law Court and standing up for this community and others like it across the state,” said Michael Corley, Senior Manager of Strategy at SCELP. “Protecting the area from a new mega landfill and closing this loophole in the permitting process would protect residents from an even greater pollution burden than they are already facing.”
As a wise man once said, before we can turn the page on history, we first need to read the page. The following histories on the spills, fires, accidents, dumps, dumping and landfills in Langley-Bath-Clearwater (LBC) are offered, not to paint a disparaging picture of Horse Creek Valley, but to serve as essential context to frame the issue of yet another landfill proposed for the small LBC community, which has served far too long as receptacle for Aiken’s City and County waste. The article’s odd-looking layout with green tabs is provided to accommodate the choice to either read these background stories — or not — and to easily skim down to the information on Rabbit Hill. A tab-free version can be read here.
The 1970s Accidents and Spills: Putrid Air, Foul Water and Middle-of-the-Night Scares
May 1975
Langley-Bath-Clearwater residents had been complaining for years of the sickening odors but didn’t know where to take their complaints. In May 1975, a local daughter who had recently returned to Langley to care for her aging parents took up the fight. She was quoted in the local paper, “I hear the dumping late at night– sometimes at 2 in the morning, and I lie in bed thinking who can I go to and what can I do.” She described “a splashing sound of tons and tons of water around midnight twice a week” and told how, after the dumping, a foul smell hovered over the homes near the creek. “It’s putrid,” she said. “It burns your sinuses and makes you sick.”1
One neighbor reported having to leave his house, taking his family to stay with relatives whenever the smell was too strong. Another neighbor said the chemicals were peeling the paint from his house. Others complained of nausea, headaches, upset stomach and dizziness. Val-Chem denied they were dumping anything into the creek.
The local DHEC office had reportedly been filing complaints for years but said their hands were tied. For one thing, there was no way to gauge or measure odors. For another, the EPA had previously granted a grace period for Val-Chem and other Horse Creek industries in 1974. Specifically, in exchange for promises to tie into the regional wastewater treatment system, which was expected to be completed in 1978, these industries could not be prosecuted during the interim for dumping into Horse Creek.
In response to the May 1975 complaints, a DHEC official allowed, however, that if Val-Chem was violating an earlier agreement to haul their wastes in solid form to the landfill, they could be investigated.
October 1975
During the dark hours on Sunday morning October 12, Langley residents were awakened by firemen and other civil defense officials going from house to house, banging on doors to warn people not to use the water.2 The day before, residents had noticed an acrid odor in the air and a foul odor and taste to their tap water. This was not unusual, just worse than usual. By midnight Saturday, DHEC officials were on the scene testing the water. The suspected contaminant was ethyl acrylate.
The ethyl acrylate had somehow gotten into the Val-Chem’s private artesian well and was then pumped into the Langley water system — a shared system between the plant and the town. For two days, residents were supplied water from National Guard trucks parked throughout the area. The water system was flushed and the connection between the two water supplies closed off. The artesian well was shut down until further notice.
As was later learned, it may have been a series of spills that led to the ethyl acrylate seeping into the ground and contaminating the well. Val-Chem and DHEC officials speculated that, alternately, the contamination could have also come from above, from Langley Pond. According to Val-Chem’s vice-president, the plant was careful to avoid spills and didn’t dump on the grounds at the plant. Further, “any plant waste that could be harmful is sealed in drums and taken to the Langley landfill.”3
February 1976
Local residents were awakened by an acrid odor in the wee hours on February 23. DHEC received their first calls around 3:00 a.m. By morning, dozens more had phoned DHEC. As would later be learned, Val-Chem had spilled some 200 gallons of ethyl acrylate into Horse Creek. Local reactions to the incident, which affected Bath, Langley and Clearwater residents, were varied. Some people claimed they didn’t smell anything, while others complained the odors made them feel profoundly sickened and nauseated. Some feared losing their jobs if they complained. Others downplayed or denied the smell, with several merchants quipping, “Smells like money.”4
Langley Elementary schoolchildren said the fumes from the plant were always present at the school and that, on bad days, they couldn’t go out to recess. They recalled the October incident when the school had been without water for a day. One sixth grader related that the odors were so bad at school, they came through the closed windows.
In the wake of the February spill, she and another sixth grader got together a petition which was signed by 500 students protesting the earlier contamination of the Langley water system and raising concerns about the long-term effects of the fumes.
Local resident Mike Duncan, a retired safety engineer, sent certified letters to the governor, members of the state legislature, and various DHEC officials requesting the problem be remedied.
In the wake of Mr. Duncan’s campaign, DHEC charged Val-Chem with negligence for the February 23 spill of some 200 gallons of ethyl acrylate into Horse Creek and the resulting “noxious vapors and fumes”5 that permeated the ambient air in and about Langley. A show-cause hearing was scheduled for May 9 to consider the charges and fines.
April 1976
Aiken County Civil Defense received 19 calls in yet another middle-of-the-night spill, the odors from which were described by some as “unbearable.” Four DHEC officials kept vigil over the bridge near Langley where “globs of butyl acrylate could be seen floating down Horse Creek.”6
The May 1976 Show-Cause hearing
Because Val-Chem was in the EPA’s grace period and couldn’t be prosecuted for contaminating the river, the issue boiled down to air pollution, whose fumes came from water, not smokestacks, and could only be gauged by the words of the citizens who smelled it. The fact that this unmeasurable piece of evidence — odor — dissipated over time and varied from place to place made the evidence all the more difficult to quantify, much less prove. Val-Chem’s attorney challenged witnesses to describe the odor of ethyl acrylate. Points were drawn on the subjective and individual nature of the sense of smell. DHEC officials were likewise challenged by the attorneys to describe the odor and to quantify the term “undesirable level of pollution,”5 which was part of the language in DHEC’s charges against Val-Chem. The queue of witnesses for the defense, who denied smelling the odor, outnumbered the witnesses who did smell it.
Val-Chem was ultimately found guilty of negligence, but the company was not fined, as it was determined that DHEC did not have the authority to set a fine on odors.
The issues of pollution in Horse Creek improved in the wake of the 1975-1976 accidents and spills but were by no means gone. A deeper dive into the topic is beyond the scope of this article. The recollection of a 1979 experience on the creek by a former Burnettown resident is provided for reference:
My brother was a born adventurer and blazed a trail from our place to the nearby Horse Creek. He had a canoe, and his idea was to explore the creek. So we went out one day, intending to travel up to the Langley Pond dam. Horse Creek isn’t a huge stream, but it is somewhat manageable by canoe. I was impressed by the wildness of the stream. The overhanging trees, the many streamside plants and flowers, the lack of human presence. It was shortly after we began our trip that I noticed some kind of white deposits, clinging to the roots and rocks in the stream. It looked like melted mats of plastic, maybe a few inches wide, though I suspected it wasn’t melted plastic. It wasn’t just in a few places, but along the entire stream. There were also areas with some kind of red substance on the white “deposits” and elsewhere and on some of the tree roots. My brother laughed and said that maybe we should steer clear of contact with the water. I laughed, too, but I took serious pains to keep from getting any of that water on my skin. I cannot think of another time when I have had such feelings of exhilaration and repulsiveness, all at the same time.
The 1986 Reimer Drum Fire, an Evacuation Order and More
A Fire at the Langley Landfill
On Friday, May 16, 1980, a fire of undetermined origin broke out in the industrial waste area of the Langley landfill. On Saturday morning, the fire was still burning. Aiken County Civil Defense reported there were no hazardous chemicals or waste in the dump, and the fire presented no danger to the residents of the Langley, Bath, or Clearwater communities.7
Bath Resident Files Suit Against Dixie Clay Company
A suit was filed against Dixie Clay Company and its parent, R.T. Vanderbilt Co., alleging pollution of a stream and damage to residential property along the stream. The plaintiff, a Flint Drive resident in Bath, claimed that, since August 1977 and continuing to the present, the clay company had discharged “extremely heavy amounts of kaolin, other forms of siltation, oil, and other non-native substances”8 into a tributary of Horse Creek. The resident claimed that this caused the stream to change color, the fish to die and vegetation to die, and the trees to suffer damage. The plaintiff also alleged that mosquitoes in huge numbers were hatched in the area due to the flooding caused by the silt in the stream.
Langley Landfill Supervisor Speaks to County Council
In October 1983, a recently terminated Aiken Country landfill supervisor reported to County Council that 339,000 gallons of butyl latex and 2,000 drums of highly volatile waste had been dumped in the Langley landfill between late summer 1975 and April 1976. The Council chairman responded that SLED had investigated the butyl latex in 1982 and found it not hazardous waste. The chairman added the SLED report also mentioned 17 loads of chemicals dumped in the Langley Landfill from the Exxon Corporation’s Summerville, SC location during 1975-1976, about which the SLED report mentioned no health hazard.9 (Note: The author has not examined the 1982 SLED report).
A read of 1982-1984. Aiken County Council meeting minutes finds numerous requests approved by Council for asbestos burial in the Langley Landfill. Among these were requests from Kimberly Clark Corp., Crawford Insulation, Daniel Construction Co., Val-Chem, the Willcox Inn, and the County Engineer with quantities ranging from 180 lbs to 13,827 lbs, and from 75-80 plastic bags to 95 drums filled with asbestos. There was regular debate among Council over the issue of disposing of asbestos in the Langley Landfill, with Councilman Mike Toole opposing the burial in plastic bags and favoring disposal in a Sumter County, SC landfill created for disposal of hazardous waste.
The Hazardous Waste Drums
On March 11, 1986, the local paper reported a story about a large number of drums sitting in the open at the intersection of Dixie Clay Road and Highway 421 in Bath. A concerned local resident reported them to the EPA The drums, approximately 120 of them, had been there for six years but only recently became visible after the old service station that had been housing them was torn down. Some of the drums were stacked helter-skelter at the site; others were lying on their side, some were bulging, others leaking. There were homes nearby, and a child had recently been seen playing in the sand at the site.10
The new owner of the property, who’d purchased the corner property five months earlier intending to put a convenience store on the lot, had actually reported the drums to the EPA in October 1985. At that time, there was no funding in the EPA’s Superfund program to address the piles of drums.
In March 1986, in the wake of a second complaint, and with funding now available, the EPA investigated the contents and found a number of substances, including polymethylene, polyphenylene, polyisocyanate, fluorocarbons, and methylene chloride. The drums, purchased from the Air Force in Oklahoma by the previous owner, Mr. Reimer, were said to be at risk for catching fire, which could potentially produce deadly toxics. “We’re considering all of the drums as hazardous waste,” said Hagan Thompson, spokesman for EPA.11
On March 25-26, 1986, workers with HAZTECH, the EPA’s Superfund contractor, removed the barrels to a less populated, more secure, “undisclosed place in the county.”12 According to Mr. Thompson, the drums would be there for two to three weeks. The agency was considering moving them to the closest available approved hazardous waste disposal site, the GSX landfill in Sumter County.
The 1986 Reimer Drum Fire
On May 13, 1986, a chemical fire broke out on Dixie Clay Co. property, where HAZTECH workers and the EPA had moved the drums seven weeks earlier and were now attempting to convert the chemicals into foam. According to various accounts, some 700-800 Bath area residents were evacuated from their homes. The emergency evacuation lasted about 2 hours and affected those southwest of Bath, downwind from the fire. About 50 firefighters from seven fire departments were called to extinguish the blaze which was, according to the Bath Fire Chief, mostly smoke. 13
Afterward, EPA officials, who were reportedly mystified to understand the fire,14 assured local residents that there would be no long-term health effects from it. A different assessment was given by Dietrich Weyel, assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh’s occupational health department and considered an expert on the burning of these materials. Addressing the possibility of severe harm that could have occurred from this accident, he described Bath residents as “lucky.”15
On June 6, 1986, local resident Tom King, president of the Aiken County Libertarian Party, delivered a petition with 500 names to U.S. Rep. Butler Derrick. The petitioners made a formal request for a “complete investigation”16 by the federal government into the toxic waste accident.
According to King, “We were led to believe that the toxic chemicals had been removed from the area last month for proper disposal. Instead, the chemicals were moved to an undisclosed location nearby and improperly handled, resulting in 800 people being evacuated and not told details for several hours, and many more nearby residents not even notified of the accident. We demand to know how this happened, who is responsible, why we weren’t told what was going on until it was too late, and what the lasting effects will be.”16
Information on the outcome of that request is stubborn to find today, as are the results of the group’s related demands that the Reimer drums and the ashes from that fire not be buried in the Langley Landfill.
A History on Langley-Bath-Clearwater Dumps, Dumping and Landfills
In the 1960s-1970s, the use of open dumps and burn pits was phased out across America and replaced with a sanitary landfill system, which involved spreading the daily waste into thin layers, then compacting it and covering it with a layer of soil at the end of each day. Many landfills started as dumps.
The former City of Aiken landfill on Beaufort Street, for instance, was a dump for most of the century preceding its transformation into a sanitary landfill around 1970. Before and after its transformation, this was the place for disposing of everything from household garbage to business and industrial waste, broken-down appliances and equipment, furniture and mattresses; building materials, tree stumps, leaf mould, and even dead animals. Before 1970, the contents smoldered in open burn piles. With the advent of the EPA in the 1970s, this practice was phased out and replaced with the sanitary landfill system. In 1986, the City of Aiken began phasing out the Beaufort Street landfill entirely, because there was simply no more space on that property to bury trash.
An aside: Here, it bears mention that the benefactors of the rodents, flies, smoke and stench from Aiken’s City dump were the nearby residents of the predominately working class, lower income, predominantly minority neighborhoods surrounding the dump. As a rule, polluting industries, dumps and landfills are not sited adjacent to middle and upper-class residential areas. Today, the injustice of this dynamic is recognized by the term “environmental justice.” More on that in a moment.
The Langley-Bath-Burnettown and Clearwater stretch of Horse Creek Valley has seen its share of dumps and landfills. The locations of the various, unofficial dumping grounds were primarily a matter of convenience — a nearby vacant lot, a nearly patch of woods, a ditch, a hillside, a pond, a swampy area. Some of the larger dumping areas are remembered by locals today and indicated on the map below.
Two of these dumping areas — Clearwater Swamp and the Huber Pit — became part of the County landfill system during the 1970-era transition from dumps to sanitary landfills.
Clearwater Swamp
The Clearwater Swamp is one of the 9 EPA superfund sites within the 4-mile stretch of Highway 421 that runs between Langley, Bath and Clearwater. The original idea behind this former sand-mining operation-turned-flooded swampland was to use garbage to displace the water. This quickly created an eyesore and heavily polluted swamp. In the mid-1960s, local groups petitioned the governor and South Carolina’s State Pollution Authority to remedy the situation. Change only came with the eventual closure of the Clearwater Swamp by EPA order in 1971. In the interim, this 40-acre area remained an unregulated dump, and it remained so even after it was designated a sanitary landfill, due to the ongoing difficulty of finding soil to cover the garbage. At days’s end, rather than being covered over with soil, as mandated, the trash would be bulldozed into the swamp by prison labor workers.
In addition to creating a severely polluted swampland, this body of water also became a major breeding ground for mosquitoes. A decision was made to conduct an experimental aerial spraying of what was all but certainly DDT over the swamp and the surrounding lands from Clearwater to Langley to see the effect on mosquitoes and midges. Assurances were made that fish, wildlife and people would be unharmed.17
The Huber Pit and Others
The Huber Pit suffered similar and ongoing difficulties transitioning to a sanitary landfill. The Huber Pit, which was also referred to as the Langley Landfill in records, opened in 1969, was already in use as a dump for household garbage and industrial waste before being slowly transitioned to sanitary landfill practices.
A 1973 article in the local paper stated that there were 50-75 tons of garbage received per week at the site and that improvements were being made to improve “health hazards” potentially caused by “uncovered garbage” to be operational by January 1974, the targeted date for all the County’s dumping to be turned over to the Huber Pit.18
Until 1974, Aiken County had a total of four dump/landfill sites, all of which suffered similar difficulties with consistent compliance with sanitary landfill practices. By 1974, three of these sites had closed — Clearwater Swamp (1971) and Vaucluse and Wire Road (1973), the latter of which was polluting the nearby Shaw’s Creek, Aiken’s municipal water supply.
In the coming years, a series of other Huber clay pits would be pressed into service for Aiken County landfills. This arrangement was a win-win for both the clay company and the County. South Carolina mining operations are required to restore former mine sites to a natural state. The reclamation process involves filling the quarries and pits, (which is accomplished through landfill operations), then covering them with soil and planting them with grasses and/or trees.
From about 1969 to 1998, the Huber Clay Company leased its clay pits to Aiken County for $1 per year to use as dumps and landfills. The Huber pit was the first to be used by the County. This was expanded in 1973, Over the next 25 years, other areas of the clay company property were utilized.
The Langley Landfill closed in 1998 after the opening of the Three Rivers Landfill, a regional solid waste facility on Savannah River Site property,
Fifty Years on Langley Pond: 1974 – 2024
The largest concentration of Horse Creek Valley’s pollution was in the Langley-Burnettown-Bath-Clearwater area, with Langley Pond at the epicenter. The advent of the EPA in 1970, then the Clean Water Act in 1972, brought teeth to enforce pollution control efforts that had been ongoing for more than a decade. The opening of the Horse Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant in 1979 ended the dumpling of raw sewage and industrial waste into the creek. With this, the recovery began in earnest.
By 1984, the biologically dead pond was coming back to life. However, it still retained its legacy of heavy metals and PCBs. These pollutants do not degrade but persist in soil and silt. There were a number of possible remedies considered in the late 1980s, including a prohibitively costly draining and dredging of the pond. Ultimately, recovery was accomplished through self-healing, with time and sediments covering over the contamination.
In 1994, the first rowing events were held at the pond. Before long, these grew to more events, with international teams, including Olympic rowers, coming to Langley Pond to train and practice. In 2004 — twenty-five years after the Horse Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant opened — the pond was tested and deemed safe for swimming. Step by step, the park’s popularity and amenities grew.
No stranger to hardship, Langley Pond had yet another hurdle to overcome — a leaking dam discovered in 2014 that required draining the pond and a 5-year closure while the County found the means and methods to repair the problem.
Two years into the closure, the Aiken County Parks, Recreation and Tourist director gave a presentation to City Council in which he enumerated some of the economic losses from the closure. Most shocking was the nearly $23 million losses to the local economy from events that were canceled or couldn’t be scheduled, among them the Augusta Invitational Regatta, the U.S. Rowing S.E. Youth Regional Regatta, the U.S. Rowing Masters National Championship, and the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Championships and Scholastic National Championship.19
Today, Langley Pond has reopened and features a swimming area and beach, a disc golf course, a covered picnic shelter and a playground. The pond is also part the 9-mile Horse Creek Water Trail for canoes and paddlers. As Aiken County Council chairman Gary Bunker said in 2022, Langley Park is, “the crown jewel of Aiken County’s park system.”20
2024: The Proposed Rabbit Hill Landfill
In late March 2024, word began to circulate on local social media (see below) about an upcoming, informal meeting with DHEC staff to be held on March 28 at the Midland Valley Fire Department to give the public opportunity to discuss a proposed landfill.
Click above screenshot for full size view.
DHEC had earlier delivered a notice (see below) dated March 14, 2024 to the relatively small number of residents in the Rabbit Hill area of Bath, Burnettown whose properties are located adjacent to the proposed landfill. The letter cites the address of the landfill as “330 Dixie Clay Road in Beech Island, SC.”
Click above document for full-size view.
While this address would sow no confusion for 911 operators, GPS and the US Postal Service, it does seed at least some confusion into the understanding of the location, as this proposed Rabbit Hill Class 2 Landfill is geographically located in Langley-Bath on clay company property directly adjacent to the former Huber pit dump and the various generations of Langley Landfills. As the crow flies, Beech Island is over 6 miles away.
According to Hilltop C&D’s application to SC-DHEC, the proposed landfill property boundary encompasses 547 acres. The proposed landfill area, over time, is 292 acres
As posted in the above notice, DHEC also sought comments, with the deadline for these comments continuing through April 13, 2024.
Aiken resident, Lisa Smith, contacted Justin Koon, manager of DHEC’s Mining and Solid Waste Division requesting they accept additional comments, which he agreed to. Lisa Smith’s letter, published for public readership in the Aiken Chronicles, enumerates some of the citizen concerns and questions that have been raised over the past several weeks. She also raised this important point:
“The community is just beginning to become informed about the proposed landfill. “
Her letter, below, is integral to understanding the Rabbit Hill Landfill issue to date.
ABOVE: What lies buried in the former unregulated landfill? Is the green water algae or something else? The former clay pit area is where a new landfill is proposed and where a significant amount of groundwater exists. (Screenshots and information provided by Greg Bramlett on the Facebook page, Petition Rabbit Hill Landfill).
BELOW: The proposed Rabbit Hill Class 2 Landfill is outlined in red. The yellow arrow points to the historic Jefferson Elementary School, attended by some 539 children.
Click above to access the petition opposing the Rabbit Hill Landfill.
Rabbit Hill and Environmental Injustice
Dumps, landfills and polluting industries have historically been sited near marginalized communities, whose residents are given no choice but to bear the brunt of the variously chronic, acute, and epigenetic repercussions to health from these sites, along with the lost quality of life, devalued property, and lack of opportunity or ability to move away.
Environmental injustice has been a running refrain in Horse Creek Valley and, in particular, in the Langley-Bath-Clearwater area — the location of 9 of Horse Creek Valley’s 14 EPA Superfund sites — and the place upon which the City of Aiken and County have been relying to bear the almost the entire burden of waste.
“The just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of income, race, color, national origin, tribal affiliation, or disability, in agency decision-making and other federal activities that affect human health and the environment so that people:
(i) are fully protected from disproportionate and adverse human health and environmental effects (including risks) and hazards, including those related to climate change, the cumulative impacts of environmental and other burdens, and the legacy of racism or other structural or systemic barriers; and
(ii) have equitable access to a healthy, sustainable, and resilient environment in which to live, play, work, learn, grow, worship, and engage in cultural and subsistence practices.”
– Executive Order 14096 – Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All
DHEC also factors environmental justice as part of decision-making processes. First on DHEC’s list of Environmental Justice Principles, which are part of their “mission of “improving the quality of life for all South Carolinians,” is this:
“Ensure that Environmental Justice Communities are Meaningfully Involved and Routinely Considered Throughout Decision-Making Processes.”
The specific demographics of the residents who would live proximate to the Rabbit Hill Class 2 Landfill are difficult to parse, because (as discussed in Part 1) the U.S. census no longer counts the unincorporated community of Bath as a discrete population. For most intents and purposes, the residents of Bath, Langley, and Clearwater are increasingly lumped in with Warrenville and, in some places, Beech Island.
Lacking census data, adequate inferences can be drawn from the local elementary schools in Gloverville, Bath and Clearwater, where 100% of the students in these schools are counted as low income.
The science of subterranean or underground landfill fires is still in its infancy. The learning curve on this is growing as more communities find themselves living next door to old landfills. There are an estimated ~400 of these per year, according to the article, “How Do You Put Out a Subterranean Fire Beneath a Mountain of Trash?” (see below), with some of them burning for months. Will this be the future of some of these poorly constructed dumps in the Valley?
The causes of the fires are often a mystery, started underground by unknown chemical reactions. These fires can happen in old limestone mines, and they can happen in landfills with special composite liners. These are not really fires as much as smoldering heat pockets that lack the oxygen to turn into full-fledged flames, so they merely smolder, emitting a stench-filled smoke that pervades throughout the area. Residents have no choice but to close up their houses and avoid going outdoors. For obvious reasons, selling their houses and moving isn’t an option.
There are a number of factors that can increase the risk for an underground landfill fire: inadequately compacted layers; inadequate layering of soil; settling in the landfill site; water percolating to a particular spot and triggering bacterial processes or a chemical reaction of the contents.
As has been shown in histories of the 1970s and 1980s, the old Huber pit dump (also an EPA superfund site) and the various iterations of Langley Landfills contain both unknown and questionable contents. What risk factors exist at this site for underground fires?
The questions regarding potential fires and other hazards are many, among them:
Questions about the visibly discolored pool (see photo earlier in the article) in one area of the landfill adjacent and the potential role of leaching as the cause.
Questions about the stability of hillsides and berms have drawn concern from one local engineer.
Questions, long asked and unanswered, on the landfill’s contents from the 1970s-1980s and the allegations of illegal dumping.
Questions on the potential for underground fires in the older landfills, given the specifics of this site’s history.
Questions on the fairness of subjecting this small community to such a preponderance of waste storage, diesel engine traffic, methane emissions, and other accompanying hazards and risks, including fires, of living near a landfill.
Questions on the effects and the risks to the school children at the nearby Jefferson Elementary School.
In Closing….
Today, Horse Creek Valley is coming back to life. The creek, once biologically dead, has been revived. The fish and the plants have returned. Parks have opened. Swimming holes and beaches have been created. Old mills, closed for decades, are being opened back up to possibility.
This is the future of Horse Creek Valley if given time, vision and an ongoing determination to leave the waste, dumps and destruction in the past.
___________________
Wendell, Debby, “Val-Chem Housewife’s Target,” Aiken Standard, May 15, 1975.
Higgs, Eric “Steps Taken to Correct Water Supply Contamination,” Aiken Standard, February 13, 1976
Lawrence, Kay, “Authorities Continue Search for Chemical That Fouled Water.” The Augusta Chronicle, October 23, 1975
Smithwick, Lin, “Valchem Residents Complain; Merchants Say it Smells Like Money,” Aiken Standard, March 5, 1976.
Smithwick, Lin, “Residents Upset at Val-Chem Smell,” Aiken Standard, March 14, 1976
The following letter was sent by Aiken resident Lisa Smith to Justin Koon of the South Carolina Department of Environmental Control regarding the proposed Landfill in Bath, SC. Others interested in writing to Mr. Koon may do so at this address below or via email to koonjt@dhec.sc.gov
Mr. Justin Koon, Manager DHEC Solid Waste and Monitoring Section Division of Mining and Solid Waste Management Bureau of Land and Waste Management
Thank you, Mr. Koon for allowing correspondence, as per our phone conversation on May 2, 2024, regarding the proposed Rabbit Hill Class Two privately-owned for-profit landfill. I am aware that DHEC has held public meetings, and an open comment period, which ended on April 13, 2024, and that you are now in the process of compiling and interpreting comments, so, do appreciate you allowing the submission of more information.
The community is just beginning to become informed about the proposed landfill.
In the last 14 days 210 signatures have been recorded on a petition that addresses citizens’ concerns. The petition is gaining momentum. 114 signatures have been recorded online, and 96 pen and ink signatures have been recorded on petitions circulated in neighborhoods surrounding the proposed landfill. (Please see the link below to read the petition).
In the last two weeks, 121 concerned citizens have formed a social media group with 80 informative posts.
An area resident, a young mother whose children attend Jefferson Elementary School, spoke very effectively about her concerns when interviewed by TV news in a report that was aired four times. (Please see link below).
A local online investigative journal published an in-depth article, the first in a series, about the environmental impact of decades of dumping in the Graniteville, SC area. (Please read attached article).
The community is becoming aware, informed, and growingly concerned.
We would like DHEC to more fully explain “Determination of Need and Consistency” and the possible “exception to” and “non-required” status of each.
We would also like DHEC to fully consider citizens’ concerns such as:
Proximity to 526 students and the staff and faculty at the historic Jefferson Elementary School.
Proximity to long established neighborhoods and to proposed new housing construction.
The existing, now closed, previously unregulated county dump site which is producing quantities of methane gas and may be affecting groundwater which will be adjacent and even possibly adjoining (see photo below).
The pristine natural wooded areas that make up a large part of the 546-acre proposed landfill site.
The important underappreciated historic sites in this area.
Two Class Two landfills very near the proposed site, one 4.7 miles, one 8.9 miles away.
The existing limitations of ingress and egress based on inadequate existing roads that currently allow access to the school and neighborhoods and will become hazardous with the potential daily use of hundreds of dump trucks.
The risk of fire in proximity to the methane producing existing county dump, the neighborhoods, woods and school complicated further with school traffic restricting access to emergency vehicles
The existence of potential alternatives such as the Three Rivers Solid Waste Authority 1400-acre Class Three Landfill with a projected lifespan of 120 years, and Aiken County’s 205-acre Barden Construction/Debris landfill, as well as 245 additional acres West of Barden also belonging to the County.
This proposed landfill may be more convenient and more profitable to the applicants, but those are not reasons to circumvent procedures that are in place to protect citizens, neighborhoods, and the environment. It’s time to consider the real costs of this proposal.
Sincerely, Lisa Smith Advocates for Aiken, President Aiken Equestrian Alliance, President Do it Right Alliance, Member
For much of its history, Horse Creek Valley and its namesake waterway have served as the receptacle for Aiken County’s industrial waste, construction debris and household garbage. The recently-learned plan by Hilltop C&D, LLC to relocate to Bath, SC and create the ~530 acre “Rabbit Hill Class 2 Landfill” compels a closer look at the past history of waste and dumping in this area. Particular focus is placed on the neighboring towns of Langley, Bath and Clearwater, which reside on a four-mile stretch of Highway 421 and whose shared history over the past 60 years includes having at least 9 of Horse Creek Valley’s 14 EPA Superfund sites and at least 4 Aiken County dumps and landfills.
One would be hard-pressed to find a more beautiful and ecologically diverse landscape in Aiken County than the Horse Creek Valley. One would be equally hard-pressed to find a landscape outside of the Savannah River Plant boundaries that has been more violated by industry. It is, of course, beyond the scope of this article to cover the full scale of soil, water and air pollution in the Horse Creek Valley over the years. The examples presented here should suffice to paint a picture of a place that has shouldered more than its fair share of destruction from industry and waste and should not be asked to give one more ounce of land to that purpose.
Horse Creek begins near South Carolina’s Fall Line and takes a meandering path toward the Savannah River. Along the way, it passes through the Valley, winding down through the textile mill villages and their industries that derived power from this creek to run their factories.
Foggy morning in Vaucluse. Photo by Laura Lance.
First is the village of Vaucluse, founded by French Huguenots in 1828. Vaucluse is the site of the oldest mill village in South Carolina. It was also the first cotton mill in the Valley and possibly the first cotton mill in the state. Vaucluse’s historic district is on the National Historic Register. This picturesque village is set around a lovely mill pond that, in earlier generations, was the setting for community picnics, swimming, fishing and baptisms. Today’s pond owners have largely barred local residents from the pond. The mill has been closed for decades and the surrounding village has been struggling with decline for nearly as long.
The Vaucluse Dump
The Vaucluse Dump operated from 1950-1973 on an 18-acre tract owned by the Graniteville Company for most of that time. Aiken County took over operations around 1969. The dump was sited just to the north of the Vaucluse village boundary, the nearest house only 1600 feet away. During its latter years, this dump was supposed to have operated as a sanitary landfill, which required that garbage be buried and covered with a layer of soil at the end of each day. In practice, chronic issues with inadequate staffing and broken-down machinery left the garbage uncovered for days at a time. According to an August 1970 account in the local paper, the Vaucluse dump had received overwhelming complaints concerning “suffocating smoke, wharf rats, flies and packs of wild dogs”1 The newly-created EPA rolled out regulations in 1972 that led to the closure of numerous private and public dumps and landfills in Aiken County, including the Vaucluse dump.
Twenty years later, the EPA conducted studies and found the two springs below the Vaucluse dump contaminated with mercury, lead, chromium and cyanide. Today’s “Vaucluse Pond Fish Consumption Advisory,” located on the SC-DHEC, website likely stems from the legacy of that dump, and of the Vaucluse mill itself, which was the site of a contemplated Brownsfield clean-up effort in 2023 that never commenced. The sign announcing that effort has since been taken down.
Brownsfield clean-up sign at the site of the historic Vaucluse Mill
Horse Creek plummets over a 42-foot drop at the Vaucluse dam beside the mill as it resumes its journey 3 miles south, as the crow flies, to the town of Graniteville.
Part of the rocky course of Horse Creek. Photo by Gary Dexter.
Along the way, the creek passes through the deep shade of rich bottomland forests and swamp lands, gathering more water from springs. Shortly before it reaches Graniteville, the sky opens to a clearing at Flat Rock Pond. Beyond that is Flat Rock Dam. These waterways, woods and landscapes were once open to local citizens for swimming, fishing, exploring and recreation but, as with Vaucluse Pond, they have since been made off-limits to locals.
Graniteville is arguably the heart of Horse Creek Valley, its historic textile mill and village, founded in 1845 by William Gregg, was certainly the nexus for the kingdom of textile industries, mill villages, and the communities of people that followed — generations upon generations of families who were employed by these mills, their jobs passing throughout time from grandfather to father, mother, son and daughter. The histories of Graniteville and William Gregg are readily found online and must be read to truly appreciate this gem of a place and its community that has survived despite the economic ravages dealt by the death of the mills that began in the 1970s and finally came to a halt in 2006, its demise attributed to damages from the 2005 Graniteville Train Crash, which released a deadly cloud of chlorine gas that took nine lives and injured countless more, leaving in its wake a landscape cauterized by the toxic chemical .
The Graniteville canal before the 2005 train crash. Photo by Gary Dexter.
Graniteville Dumping
It would be difficult to overstate the devastation caused to the waters and lands by the collective injuries from industrial chemicals, heavy metals, dyes, solvents, pesticides and raw sewage dumped around and into Horse Creek along its course from Vaucluse to the Savannah River. The Graniteville Company’s contributions to this body load are immeasurable. Even when regulations were finally enacted in the 1970s, there were grace periods, special allowances, and a lack of adequate oversight and monitoring which allowed the contamination to perpetuate unabated. To cite just one example, which was reported in the local newspaper, the Gregg Division of Graniteville Company was, at one point, said to be dumping some 845 lbs of chromium per day2 into Horse Creek.
In addition to the wholesale dumping of chemicals, industrial waste and sewage from the mill into Horse Creek, there were numerous other dumping grounds scattered around the Graniteville community that were receptacles to a mix of industrial, commercial and household garbage and waste. Some of these were sited near schools. One was near the base of the cemetery hill on Graniteville Highway. Athletic fields were later built atop these dumping grounds, which led to stories of Friday night football players sliding into the glass shards that were embedded in the dirt. The drainage ditch adjacent to the football field was a legendary bottle-digger’s paradise, chock full of antique ink bottles from the nearby Leavelle McCampbell school.
In the 1980s, Graniteville Company and the other mills below it on Horse Creek were the subject of numerous “Significant Industrial Pollution Violations” citations by the South Carolina DHEC. In the 1990s, and to no avail, a local group of parents of Byrd Elementary students banded together as CHASE (Citizens Helping Achieve a Safe Environment),2 stood up to the polluters and demanded that the EPA do better monitoring. It is unknown to this author if the hazards of the dumping grounds near any of these schools and parks were ever evaluated.
This isn’t to say that the knowledge and awareness of the contamination began with the advent of the EPA in 1970. It began much earlier and was empowered by a 1950 pollution control act that gave birth to the South Carolina Pollution Control Authority. Headlines in the 1950s and 1960s featured the stories of pollution, dumps and landfills, which were inextricably linked to, and situated with special intensity, in areas of industry and poverty. These local headlines grew in pitch and number during campaign seasons, as Horse Creek Valley, the political powerhouse of Aiken County at the time, was struggling with the effects of household and industrial waste. Local citizens were empowered to act, and did so, under the belief they might have some say over the squalor and stench being visited onto their towns.
In 1965, a headline in the local paper read, “ Horse Creek Pollution Petition Goes to Governor.”3 A group of local citizens, led by Aiken attorney Marion Smoak, asked for a study of the streams, and further appealed that the SC Department of Health, Education and Welfare obtain a federal grant to begin long-range cleanup of Horse Creek. The petition pointed out that the 12-mile strip of Horse Creek running from Graniteville to the heavy concentration of textile plants in the Langley-Bath-Clearwater area was an unclassified stream open to the unrestricted dumping of industrial waste and raw sewage. The petition — which termed the stream a hazard to the health of the people and said that pollution deprived them of an otherwise useful waterway — was signed by 3145 residents of the area. The petition sought a study of the area by the state and federal aid to help with the cleanup of “excessive pollution of Big Horse Creek.”
Records of any remedy found through this petition are difficult to locate. It is known, however, that in 1971, Horse Creek and Langley Pond were described in an EPA study as “biologically dead”4 with high levels of chromium, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other heavy metals and chemicals. There were no fish, no insects, no life in the creek.
Below Graniteville is the community of Madison, followed by the mill village of Warrenville, where Horse Creek is joined by Sand River, a tributary from the east that originates in Aiken’s urban forest, Hitchcock Woods. From Sand River, Horse Creek has inherited over the years the sometimes high levels of E. Coli from equine sources, aged septic systems, and leakage/overflow of the sewage pipes routed through Hitchcock Woods.5
Warrenville
Warrenville was built around the Warren Mill, which was in operation from 1898-1982, the latter years under the ownership of the Graniteville company. Unlike the other mills in the Valley, the Warren Mill, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is currently being restored to create a luxury apartment community.
June 2024 images of the ongoing transformation of the Warrenville Mill into the Warren Mill Lofts.
From Warrenville, Horse Creek takes a southwesterly turn as it continues its journey through the rest of the Valley and toward the Savannah River, the creek’s course running more or less parallel to most of Highway 421.
Town signs. Photos by Laura Lance
The towns along this 4-lane highway are strung like beads on a necklace beginning with Stiefeltown at the eastern end of 421, and continuing westward to the towns of Warrenville, Mixville, Gloverville, Langley, Burnettown, Lynwood, Bath and Clearwater. If not for the road signs, a traveler would miss the transition from one town to the next.
In fact, if not for those signs, a traveler might never know these places existed. This is because, according to the US Postal Service, the US Census Bureau, and the GPS and 911 systems, nearly all of the addresses in this stretch of Horse Creek Valley are now in Warrenville. It didn’t used to be this way, and one could go down a rabbit hole trying to explain the changes. Suffice it to say that there is contradictory information regarding the locations of these spots on the map. For instance, one document may list Langley Dam Park as being located in Warrenville; in another document, it is located in Langley. The same goes for the Langley Landfill, which is sometimes listed in Warrenville, other times listed in Beech Island, (which is some 6.76 miles away as the crow flies), and other times listed in its true geographical location — Langley, South Carolina. From here, a conversation could begin on the disappearance of towns and what this means for the communities of people who live there.
Gloverville
For everything that Horse Creek Valley communities have shared in common over the years, there were always certain divisions. Some of this stemmed from the physical distance between the eastern and western side of the Valley. Some stemmed from the ownership of the mills and even the mill towns during much of their earlier history. The Graniteville Company owned the mill towns of Vaucluse, Graniteville and Warrenville, while United Merchants and Manufacturing owned the mill towns of Langley, Bath and Clearwater. A certain rivalry existed between the owners of these villages.
Standing between the two worlds was Mixville, then Gloverville, whose history began before the existence of the textile industry. Possibly the oldest European settlement on present-day Highway 421, Gloverville was said to be the site of an early sawmill dating to the early 1800s. Somewhere between Mixville and Gloverville, Horse Creek widens to form the head of Langley Pond.
Langley
Situated halfway between Aiken and Augusta is Langley. Power for the Langley Mill was provided from the dam at Langley Pond. The Langley Mill, originally called the Kalmia Mill, was built before the Civil War and underwent numerous expansions and changes over the years, including the 1870 name change to “Langley,” which was given to both the mill and the town. The Langley Mill was bought by United Merchants and Manufacturers in the early 1900s.
The old Langley Railroad Depot, restored and repurposed to house the Midland Valley Public Library. Photo by Wren Dexter.
In addition to the Langley Mill, United Merchants also owned the Seminole Mill, Clearwater Finishing Plant, and Bath Mill. The United Merchants land holdings in the Valley were huge, including most of the property fronting the Aiken Augusta Highway from the Midland Valley Country Club to the Clearwater-Belvedere Road; the land surrounding Clearwater and Langley Ponds, and the mill villages of Langley, Bath and Clearwater.
This is to say that, for much of the 20th century, almost the entirety of the Valley was owned by the industries of Graniteville Company, United Merchants, and the owners of the various kaolin strip mining operations. By the time Horse Creek arrived to Langley Pond, it was already carrying an ample load of industrial waste and raw sewage from upstream.
The Langley Dumps
Langley Pond, itself, was site for much dumping from various industries and individuals over the years– the heavy metals and chemicals gathering into the pond’s sediments, creating a toxic layer that remains there to this day. As earlier mentioned, by the 1970s, the pond was devoid of fish and all life, the trees and vegetation at the pond’s edges dead. According to locals, it had been this way for 20 years.
The Langley Mill, located beside the Langley Pond dam, ceased operation early in the 20th century, the building converting to warehouse storage for United Merchants. The mill had survived numerous difficulties and setbacks over its history, between lightning strikes, fires, financial struggles and flooding before finally burning down in 1946. From its ashes rose a chemical factory called Val-Chem, which manufactured a broad range of chemicals for the textile and paper industries including resins, surfactants, dyes, solvents and agents for textile finishing. For the first 25 years of its history, there was no oversight of Val-Chem’s activities regarding dumping into local lands and waters.
The red star marks the site of the former Val-Chem Chemical Co. located near the Langley Pond Dam. Click image for full size view.
The odors from the plant — an accepted fact of life for locals — had been ongoing for years. With the advent of the EPA in 1970, local waterways, including the Savannah River, began to come under study. In 1972, the high levels of chromium in the river were traced to its Horse Creek tributary. Horse Creek and its own tributary, Little Horse Creek, were determined to be “grossly polluted from the discharge of more than 11 million gallons per day (MGD) of untreated textile mill wastes and more than 1.3 MGD of raw and inadequately treated sanitary wastes.”6
In March 1972, the EPA called for an “immediate halt”7 on the dumping of chromium by three industries upstream — Graniteville’s Gregg Mill, Val-Chem Chemical Co. and Clearwater Finishing Plant. This “immediate halt” was softened to a recommendation that the companies submit a feasibility study by October 1, 1972 on removal of chromium from their discharges. At some point among the studies and discussions among local, state and federal officials. it became clear that the problem of pollution and water quality was both a Horse Creek problem and a regional problem.
In May 1974, the Aiken County Public Service Authority held public hearings on a plan to build a regional waste treatment plant at the junction of Horse Creek and the Savannah River. This was to be completed in 1978. It opened in 1979.
In exchange for promises to tie into the regional wastewater treatment system, Val-Chem, Clearwater Finishing and Gregg Mill received temporary discharge permits from the EPA. During this grace period, by agreement, these companies could not be prosecuted for polluting Horse Creek. Part of the deal included an agreement that Val-Chem would haul their wastes to the landfill in a solid form.8 This both did and did not happen.
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Next:Part 2 of 2. Topics to include the 1975-76 Val-Chem accidents; the school children’s pollution petition; the Clearwater Swamp Dump; the Reimer Drums, and more.
