‘It’s oppressive’: Sun City neighbors worry about smoke, smell from nearby burning
Stuart Frank has lived in Del Webb’s Sun City Hilton Head for the last three years and says he’s enjoyed his time there — for the most part.
Last summer, he dealt with a nearby towering mound of trash and debris at Able Contracting that caught fire and spewed toxic fumes in the area.
The mound — just down the road from the Jasper County part of Sun City — was finally dismantled early this year in a $4.5 million environmental cleanup by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Now, Frank and his neighbors say they are dealing with another fire.
For the last week, they say they’ve watched as smoke plumes billowed toward their homes. The smell of the smoke is putrid and disrupts their daily lives, the neighbors say.
“It’s impacting the air and affecting us,” Frank said.
The smoke and smell are coming from next door, where crews are clearing 225 acres for 520 homes. After cutting down the trees at the site, workers burn some of the wood in a pit. Although the pit is located several hundred feet away from existing homes in Sun City, some residents are still concerned.
Annette Hazen, whose home backs up to the construction site, said the smoke and smell leave her with “burning eyes.”
“It’s oppressive,” she said.
Hazen, who is undergoing chemotherapy treatments, said she and her husband bought their home in Sun City because of the heavily wooded backyard. They didn’t know that those trees would soon be cut down to make way for more homes.
PulteGroup, Inc., the developer of Sun City, hired Dustcom Limited, Inc. to clear the land and prepare the site for the new homes.
Dusty Williams, owner of Dustcom, said his company has gotten all the proper permits from DHEC to burn the wood safely. He said he has exceeded the distance DHEC requires for burning near residential homes and that he spoke with the Hardeeville Fire Department before burning.
“We’ve gone above and beyond and we’re completely in compliance with the law,” Williams said. “[The neighbors] are just upset that there’s more homes being built.”
Williams said the enhanced air blower his company is using to burn the wood is designed to “burn hotter, cleaner and less smoky.”
He said his crews pay attention to the way the wind is blowing before they start burning.
However, he admitted, there was one day when the wind shifted direction and the smoke started blowing toward the homes in Sun City.
“Those are changes in nature,” he said. “I can’t do anything about that.”
Williams said he has consulted with DHEC workers about the smoke and “if they say it’s safe, then I have no reason to do anything different.”
“I have a job to do,” Williams said when asked about the neighbors’ concerns. “My job is to come in and build more houses so more people can enjoy Sun City. You’re going to have people that will feel like they’re impacted. Let me do my job and stay in compliance and we’ll be out of the way soon.”
Chris Delcamp, DHEC’s public information director, confirmed in an email Thursday that DHEC gave permission for an “enhanced air burner” to be used to “burn trees being removed in order to accommodate additional Sun City development.”
The air burner includes a lined burn pit and a mounted manifold blower, Delcamp said. The air flow across the pit enhances combustion while “recirculating most of the heat and smoke back into the pit.”
“DHEC regional staff will continue to monitor the site to determine if the operational requirements are being met, or if additional actions are necessary,” the email said.
Delcamp said staff has not observed any problems with the company’s burning, but DHEC encourages homeowners to reach out to its regional office with “specific details about when and where excessive smoke is being seen so that we may identify any issues, and ensure the concerns of the residents are being addressed.”
DHEC can be reached at (843) 846-1030.
Some residents in Sun City say they wish the company hauled the wood away from the site instead of burning it near their homes.
Gary Pelt, another Sun City neighbor, said he saw smoke from the site billowing 30 feet in the air about a week ago.
“If they have the right to burn, then chip it, burn it and get it out of here,” he said. “Get it over with and don’t just let it smolder.”
When asked why his company decided to burn the wood instead of hauling it away, Williams said, “it was decided by many different people that are above [me in] the food chain that we were so far away from any existing structure, we found it allowable to burn it.”
Williams said he didn’t know how long his company will be burning at the site, but said his job of clearing trees, paving roads, preparing stormwater controls and constructing building pads at the site will take from 10 months to a year.
This story was originally published June 19, 2020 at 2:35 PM.
