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It seems there is precious little room for compromise in the looming battle over South Carolina’s most precious and vital natural resource: water.

Podcast

"Five Minutes" is an ongoing series of podcasts featuring a variety of voices and perspectives on issues affecting the Edisto River and its watershed.

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Here are the comments of Doug Busbee presented at the South Carolina State House rotunda during a Feb 11, 2015 press conference introducing legislation of Rep James Smith dealing with the SC surface water law.

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Blog

Jan 21, 2015 -- Our friend, Doug Busbee did a great job today presenting to State Senators our concerns about SC's weak water withdrawal laws. The State newspaper provides a summary at this link ...
Aiken residents ask SC Senate to limit river withdrawals by megafarms | Politics | The State

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Resident, DHEC square off on mega farms water withdrawals in SC (The State News, October 16, 2014)   —     Doug Busbee has spent nearly a year trying to keep mega farms from siphoning too much water from the Edisto River basin near his home.

Early Thursday, he drove from Aiken County to a scientific conference in Columbia and put government regulators on the spot before a ballroom filled with people.

Blog

Guest editorial in The State, Oct 10, 2014 -- Stronger Protections needed for precious SC surface waters --

Columbia, SC — The registration that allowed a single farm to withdraw up to two-thirds of the South Fork Edisto River’s flow during low-flow conditions demonstrates the need for legislative action on state water policy.

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T&D News, Oct 11, 2014 -- A group of South Carolina landowners, including one from Bamberg County, are suing to overturn the portion of the state’s 2010 water withdrawal law that sets up different rules for agriculture and industry.

The landowners’ main concern is that agricultural users can take out the same amount of water at all times under the law without regard to water flows, said attorney Amy Armstrong of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project. “It creates a certain, special class of water withdrawal exemptions from the regular permitting process,” she said.

Blog

Apr 24, 2014 -- Nice editorial in the Post & Courier from Norman Brunswig of Audubon South Carolina ...  "Save the endangered Edisto River while we still can"

Brunswig says, "The only thing small about these [water] issues is the amount of water in the beautiful, little Edisto, and how very little extra it has to donate to non-ecological functions, particularly at its lowest flows. In drought years, the very ones during which the irrigators will want it most, the Edisto all but dries up. Without water, there is no Edisto River."

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Friends of the Edisto Newsletter of Apr 29, 2014 -- features:

- WHERE WE STAND: Protecting Our Edisto April 29, 2014 (text presented below)

- Stewardship Day - Edisto River Cleanup set for May 10, 2014 at Colleton State Park

- 2013 River Journey: Chapter 4 by Alan Mehrzad

Friends of the Edisto Newsletter

Blog

Below is the press release from American Rivers:

http://www.americanrivers.org/Edisto

Washington, D.C.- American Rivers named the South Fork Edisto River among America’s Most Endangered Rivers® of 2014 (on April 8, 2014), shining a national spotlight on excessive withdrawals that take too much water out of the river, threatening river health and downstream water users.