The Town, with the City of Charleston and Charleston County, commissioned an island-wide drainage delineation. The key goal was to delineate the major drainage basins on James Island. This task has been completed. The Island has been divided into 30 major drainage basins. There are many sub-basins also delineated.
The map includes all of the drainage infrastructure that has been inventoried by each jurisdiction as well as SCDOT. Unfortunately, there are large areas of James Island that include substantial drainage infrastructure that has not been inventoried. Charleston County undertook a major effort to inventory drainage infrastructure in the Town and unincorporated area some years ago. That was one of the many projects funded by the storm water utility that appears on the property tax bills for everyone in the Town and unincorporated area.
The study is also developing criterion to help elected officials designate basins for more detailed study. These more detailed studies will be similar to the Signal Point Study that is being managed by Charleston County and paid for by the County and the City of Charleston. Also, the Wambaw study is to be managed by the City of Charleston and paid for by the City and Charleston County. It has been in the works for some time and is slated to begin soon. It will study what we are going to be calling the Central Park Basin. This process will continue basin by basin.
We hope that this study will identify severe choke points where small culverts impede to the flow of water causing upstream flooding. This will provide for projects which can enter the infrastructure pipeline (budgeting, requests for funding, bidding, and construction) as early as this year with some improvements potentially constructed as early as next year.
The delineation was done by Thomas and Hutton Engineering consultants with Charleston County managing the contract. The City of Charleston paid approximately 50% of the cost, with the Town and Charleston County each picking up about 1/4 of the expense. This reflects the total jurisdiction of highland on James Island.
This is just the first step of a larger process. It reflects a process that began five years ago when the Town began sponsoring the James Island Storm Water managers meetings. We hope to see a presentation of the final product at the James Island Intergovernmental Committee meeting soon. There is a clear consensus among all jurisdictions that we must work together to solve drainage problems on James Island.
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