Court overturns Dillon County hog farm permit

Pee Dee Indian Nation Chief Carolyn Chavis-Bolton said she will sleep a little better at night now that a proposed swine facility won’t be built near the river and the land that has been inhabited by the Indians for hundreds of years.

The Pee Dee Indian Nation, along with other Dillon County petitioners, filed a lawsuit against a permit issued by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control that would have allowed Ryan Coleman to operate Oak Ridge Swine Farm. The farm was projected to hold a maximum of 3,520 hogs.

If built, the nation believed, the farm and the 2.9 million gallons of liquid manure the hogs would generate annually would ruin a way of life for the residents living nearby, Chavis-Bolton said.

The case was heard in September by S.C. Administrative Law Court Judge Paige Gossett, who ruled Aug. 14 that DHEC erred in granting the permit for the hog farm.

DHEC spokesmen could not be reached for comment Wednesday on the ruling.

“We had waited so long. We were all delighted,” Chavis-Bolton said. “Every time we saw each other we would ask, ‘Did you hear something?’ We had to have patience, but I guess patience is sometimes a good thing.

“It turned out the way we wanted it to turn out and I’m just so grateful and so thankful to everyone.”

It took time for petitioners to realize it wasn’t a small case and that the residents were going head-to-head with a state agency, Chavis-Bolton said.

State law requires that a lagoon containing hog waste be at least 500 feet from state waters.

DHEC reduced this setback, bringing the lagoons closer to the Little Pee Dee River and its tributaries, according to Gossett’s ruling.

This is legal, but only if the permittee implements a design “to control the discharged from a failed lagoon, treatment system, or manure storage pond so that it never enters the Waters of the State” Gossett wrote in the ruling.

Columbia attorney Bob Guild, who represented the petitioners in the case, presented expert witnesses who told the court that the lagoons would likely fail, spilling manure into the Little Pee Dee River.

Because of this, the court couldn’t conclude the discharge would never enter the Little Pee Dee River and denied Coleman’s request for a operation permit.

Chavis-Bolton said she grew up on the banks of the river that shares the name of her people.

“It’s been a part of our life forever,” she said. “And it would be a shame for somebody to come along and ruin it.

“The children — the only thing they’ve got is the river. It’s the only form of recreation. They fish in it during the winter and the swim in it during the summer.”

The push to keep the farm from being build brought an entire community together and set an example for others facing similar challenges, Chavis-Bolton said.

“I hope everybody will understand that we don’t have to take everything that’s dished out to us. You don’t have to take it just because somebody said it’s good for you,” she said. “If it don’t benefit everybody and it just benefits just a few, it isn’t good for everybody. We’re just so grateful that it’s over.”