Laser Tattoo Removal in Awendaw, SC

AWENDAW — Drive north on U.S. Highway 17, past the shopping centers and subdivisions, and you’ll come to a small town that sits at the proverbial crossroads of South Carolina’s most-pressing environmental issues. Here the Milky Way still shines at night, the wetlands teem with life, and the trees grow dense enough to create a near-perpetual dusk in the forest below.

But as Charleston County is reshaped by a fast-growing population and rising seas, the future of Awendaw and its wild spaces is in an uneasy limbo, and there’s no easy path towards a solution.

In this small town, anxieties about over-development collide with increased flooding, leaky septic tanks and the threat of wildfires. All of those issues are playing out in a town wedged between two of South Carolina’s most-diverse ecosystems: the Francis Marion National Forest and Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge.

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As the U.S. government changes the playbook for federal land management — the Trump administration plans to increase logging in Francis Marion and has cut federal positions across South Carolina — Awendaw is literally caught in the middle.

“We’ve got the Department of Agriculture on the west, the Department of Interior on the east, and this oddly-shaped town of Awendaw is the gateway between those two,” said recently-elected Mayor Chris Crolley.

Awendaw’s adaptation strategy largely depends on nature-based, green solutions and ordinance overhauls, he said. The town recently became the second community in South Carolina to adopt a local wetlands protection ordinance in response to the Trump administration’s plan to deregulate previously-protected areas.

In Awendaw, Blake Scott sees a developing “road map” for other communities.

“ I see Awendaw as a perfect example of conservation on the human scale,” said Scott, the co-founder of the Charleston-based M.A.R.S.H. Project, a grassroots conservation group that works to protect Charleston’s salt marshes. Scott noted that Awendaw, population 1,600, is about the same size as many of Charleston’s neighborhoods.

“ We see that as a functional scale for us to achieve environmental victories,” Scott continued. “If Awendaw can do it, we hope that we could do it at our neighborhood level and then mushroom out from there to Charleston's various neighborhoods.”

Cape Romain’s gateway

Spanning 22 miles and roughly 66,000 acres, the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge is a near-pristine ecosystem of wetlands, islands, shores and maritime forests. The Cape is a biodiversity hotspot home to the state’s most-active nesting sites for loggerhead sea turtles and nearly 300 migratory and year-round bird species, several of which are considered "Tipping Point Species" that have lost at least half their population in the last 50 years.

While the refuge is managed by the Department of Interior, the surrounding communities play a significant role in safeguarding its water quality and ecosystem. Runoff from Awendaw washes directly into Cape Romain, and development along the border of the refuge has been a simmering source of tension in the community.

"Lands surrounding the Refuge are crucial for maintaining habitat and water quality by acting as buffers for the waters, marshes, and barrier islands of the Refuge," Sherri Fields, the conservation director for Audubon South Carolina, wrote in an email. "If these buffers are degraded by construction and pollution, habitats in the Refuge will also be affected, which will have negative consequences for bird populations that are already suffering."

The National Parks Service considers over half of the refuge a “Class 1 National Wilderness Area.” That status grants it additional Clean Air Act protections and means that, theoretically, the Cape is supposed to have some of the cleanest air in South Carolina.

“Awendaw is the gateway to Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge,” Crolley said. “For Awendaw to be positioned so close to Cape Romain — it means something. There’s a responsibility inherent in that.”

In addition to his new role leading the town, Crolley owns and operates Coastal Expeditions, a local business that offers eco-tours of Charleston County’s tidal wetlands and ecosystem. The company also has a nonprofit arm, the Coastal Expeditions Foundation.

The foundation does conservation work within Cape Romain, work Crolley said is critical these days.

But limited funding for the National Wildlife Refuge system has been a challenge throughout several presidential administrations, Crolley said. He bluntly described it as a persistent “lack of give-a-sh- -” from Washington, D.C.

“ They're completely understaffed,” he said. “I think their charter says they're supposed to have 14 people, and they have two.”

If you include a regional manager in that count, he said, it raises the level of staffers at Cape Romain to three. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — which is under the Interior Department and manages the Cape Romain Refuge — declined to comment on current staffing levels at the refuge, or about what the pre-Trump administration staffing levels were.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service remains dedicated to conserving America’s wildlife and natural habitats while promoting access, use, and enjoyment of public lands by the American people, all while upholding federal responsibilities with efficiency and accountability," an agency spokesperson wrote in a statement.