SCDES Announces Public Meeting to Introduce Draft Pee Dee River Basin Plan
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 16, 2024
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Department of Environmental Services (SCDES) invites residents to attend an upcoming meeting to review and provide comments about the draft Pee Dee River Basin Plan. Public input is an integral part of the development of the plan, which will help identify best management practices for ensuring the Pee Dee River basin has water resources available for all future users.
This plan is the third of eight River Basin plans to be finalized over the next year for each of the eight planning basins in the state: Broad, Catawba, Edisto, Lower Savannah-Salkehatchie, Pee Dee, Saluda, Santee, and Upper Savannah. The Pee Dee River Basin draft plan was developed over a two-and-a-half-year period by the Pee Dee River Basin Council, a working group of stakeholders with water interests in the basin, using the guidance of the South Carolina State Water Planning Framework published in 2019.
“The draft Pee Dee River Basin Plan includes an assessment of current and future water availability in the basin and documents water management strategies that can help ensure water is available for all future uses in the basin for the next 50 years,” said Scott Harder, Hydrology Section Manager with SCDES’s Bureau of Water. “With the draft plan complete, we’re ready to present it to the public so we can begin receiving comments that will be reviewed and considered as the plan is finalized.”
The public meeting is 6 p.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025, at the Clemson Pee Dee Research and Education Center, 2200 Pocket Road, Darlington. It serves as an opportunity for the Pee Dee River Basin Council to solicit residents’ input about the draft plan, which is available online at des.sc.gov/hydrology. Public comments will be accepted from Jan. 14-Feb. 13, 2025.
“Public involvement is critical to the goal of ensuring that future generations of South Carolinians have secure, well-managed supplies of our most critical natural resource: water,” Harder said.
Learn more about water planning in South Carolina and the South Carolina State Water Planning Framework and river basin planning process at des.sc.gov/hydrology.
