Despite pressure from officials, Dominion won’t alter plan to cut Bluffton palmetto trees
Dominion Energy said Thursday it has begun cutting down 29 palmetto trees in Bluffton’s historic district, despite pressure from state legislators and outcry from town residents.
Dominion Energy began removing the 90-year-old trees on Monday because they touched electrical wires and were a risk to the public, officials said. Earlier this week, there was hope that the utility might postpone the project, giving town officials and legislators time to fast-track a plan to bury the power lines and save the trees, a dilemma officials are also grappling with in Charleston.
But on Thursday, Dominion Energy confirmed that nine trees had already been cut and said the project would continue.
“Safety is our top priority, and due to increased foot traffic in the community during this weekly event — and as a courtesy to the town, the residents and participating vendors — work in the area will primarily be scheduled Monday through Wednesday as the project moves forward,” wrote Dominion spokesperson Paul Fischer.
The energy company plans to work with Bluffton officials to plant future trees “in the right place to avoid trimming or removal as vegetation matures,” Fischer said. Work was not scheduled on Thursday due to the Bluffton Farmers Market, he said.
Some of the trees that line Calhoun Street in Bluffton’s historic district are sabal palmettos, the state tree of South Carolina and the namesake of the state’s nickname. They’re important to neighbors, who feel like they’ve been left in the dark as the energy company cuts through pieces of the town’s history. Although Dominion officials say the trees are dangerous, longtime Blufftonians say there has to be a better solution.
Town residents planted some of the trees in the 1930s to commemorate the Bluffton soldiers who fought in World War I and never came home. They hearken back to a time when Bluffton was just one square mile, undisturbed by the kind of development the town has seen over the past decade.
“These palms are what Bluffton is about,” resident Joanie Heyward said. “It’s our heritage.”
Over the past week, the energy company has felt pressure from area legislators, including S.C. Sen. Tom Davis (R-Beaufort), Bluffton Reps. Bill Herbkersman and Weston Newton and town officials to halt, or at least postpone, the project. Mayor Lisa Sulka and Council member Larry Toomer said the town received “rude” and “nasty” messages from residents who felt that officials did not do enough to stop the cutting.
“None of us wanted this to happen,” Toomer said Tuesday. “We were overpowered — steamrolled, basically — from our huge Dominion Energy utility company.”
‘It’s only history.’
Longtime Bluffton residents and property owners say they weren’t notified about the tree cutting until days before it started. Many were angered by the news.
Richard Coffield, a Bluffton resident, said that may have been by design to prevent public outcry. He worries that Calhoun Street will lose its “ambiance” without the historic trees and that Dominion is cutting them down as “quickly as possible” to put the issue to bed.
“I’m astounded by how rapidly this thing came about,” he said. “I really wish we could’ve gotten some advance notice of this. It’s only history.”
In a news release about the tree cutting, Bluffton interim Town Manager Scott Marshall said the 90-year-old trees were at the end of their life cycles. Although the town initially considered relocating the trees, officials found it would cost $25,000 and could pose a risk to the trees’ survival, the release said.
“Arborists have advised us that, given their age and condition, these trees are too fragile to be viable for transplantation,” the release said.
But Coffield and Heyward dispute that assertion. They say sabal palmetto trees can live as long as 200 to 300 years — making the 90-year-old palms lining Calhoun Street middle-aged.
“They were planted by locals in memory of fallen heroes,” Heyward said. “They are part of the heritage of Bluffton.”
Heyward said she hopes Dominion will work with town officials to get easements for the properties and quickly lay the power lines underground. She said the trees “can’t be” cut down.
“This is what preservation is about,” she said. “Sometimes preservation is inconvenient.”
In Charleston, Dominion Energy briefly halted its plan to cut down 170 palmettos so city crews could coordinate to quickly remove the stumps after the cutting. Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said he’d work with city leaders to greenlight a plan for underground lines so that Dominion could begin burrowing under the trees rather than trimming them.
If Dominion officials can work with Charleston, Heyward said, they should be able to work with Bluffton.
Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka floated a plan Tuesday to take some of the historic logs to Wright Family Park and house a “storyboard” showing “why those trees were planted there in the first place.”
As part of the town’s strategic plan, officials plan to bury power lines along Calhoun Street and expect to replant some of the palm trees that currently line the historic district, according to the news release. The Calhoun Street Streetscape project is expected to start in 2023 or 2024.
Called Thursday, Council member Fred Hamilton and Bridgette Frazier said saving the trees were high on the town’s list of priorities. Hamilton said he hopes the energy company will delay the cutting so officials can “do some maneuvering.”
This story was originally published April 16, 2021 at 4:30 AM.
