A great idea, at the time

There's a bicycle path along the local leg of the highway, through Murrells Inlet. There's also a bike path through the state park, which lies on the other side of the tidal creek.

For years, the plan has been to build an unbroken 11-mile bikeway from Litchfield (south of the park) to the county line (at the north tip of Murrells Inlet). Each leg is to be connected to the others. And we loved the idea. Actually, we still love it in theory, but we failed big time to take a hard look at what they planned.

This creek is a fragile tidal estuary. It's home to a lot of wildflife, seasonal and year-round, including the threatened woodstork and the Eastern brown pelican. When a developer across the street decided to build a shopping/condo eco-horror, a bunch of us residents took it to hearings and got the plan reduced to accomodate a big wooded setback around its perimeter. It's still going to release asphalt-soaked runoff into the creek, the developer is still taking down beautiful 150-200 year old live oaks, and we're still depressed as hell by the destruction, but we did what we could.

The bike path was another matter. We paid no attention to the plan. Stupid!

The Americans With Disabilites Act is a great thing, and if we'd realized the impact it would have on this path, we'd have found a way to make it meet ADA and still be more ecologically sound. But it slipped under our radar. When we heard the power saw, we ran outside.

First, the already-made bike path through town is on both sides of the street. But to cross the creek along this bridge (thereby connecting to the park's path), both northbound and southbound lanes will run together on the east side of the road. This triggers width requirements that, according to the contractor, mean two wheelchairs must be able to pass one another. Fine, ADA is important.

The next part, though, is elaborate and unnecssary. Some grandiose wanna-be Nature Lover decided that it needs to have a scenic overlook (which will go on the other side of this guardrail). So now a big wide observation deck must go where we thought only a level, bikeable path over the bank needed to go.

That means the death of that beautiful old cedar in the top picture, and, worse, it means pressure-treated pilings to support the deck. Pressure-treated lumber is necessary if you have to use wooden posts. Of course. Otherwise they'd rot quickly. And while there are newer, less toxic types of pressure treatment, they are lower-rated, and suitable only for residential use. To live outdoors in salt water, the rating must be 2.5 (explained in this article -- see the green box and below), and that means CCA (chromated copper arsenate. Yes, that is arsenic).

Bottom photo by Larry

At the very least, we could have required some other material be used. None are very good, rammed into this precious creek, but pressure-treatment means slow leach of poison into the water when the tide comes up.

Woulda coulda shoulda, again. From now on, we'll have to be vigilant about any project, even one that seems as blasted nature-friendly as a bike path.