Port Royal’s Cypress Wetlands is now drained and barren. What’s going on?
What was once a lush corner of Port Royal is now alarmingly barren.
The Cypress Wetlands near downtown has been drained and is being renovated.
Town officials and conservationists say the project will help preserve the area, but the ugly process has alarmed residents and neighbors, who say their hearts are breaking as they pass the once-peaceful place that has been dug up and turned over.
On Dec. 14, Irene Foster and her son were excited to bring her mother out to the wetlands for the first time in two years. Foster said she often visits to spend some time alone and rejuvenate and she was excited to share the space with her mother.
“We pulled up, and most of it was bulldozed over. I said, ‘What happened?’ I was really disappointed,” she said.
She shared a photo on Facebook of the razed land and said her “heart broke into pieces this morning.”
A boardwalk and paved walking trail used to bring visitors from around Beaufort County and beyond to admire the wetlands’ canals, live oaks draped in Spanish moss and an impressive island rookery.
That pathway system has been blocked since September while the Town of Port Royal completes the work, which will cost $400,000 and is being funded by the town’s stormwater utility fees.
The wetlands area, a freshwater system home to hundreds of birds, is being renovated because it has slowly become overgrown in the last decade.
In a video shared by the town, Chris Marsh explains that bushy plants were dropping leaves and spreading roots to fill in the wetland.
If the area is left unattended, Marsh says, the build up will make the wetlands dry enough that large trees like willows and red maples will grow there — foresting the wetlands.
“Routine yearly maintenance no longer can keep up with the growth of invasive plant and tree species,” the town wrote in a Facebook post in November. “It is now necessary to remove much of the invasive plant and tree species to reestablish the nesting habitat.”
Marsh is the executive director of the Lowcountry Institute Spring Island Trust. In the video, he and others share the process for “renovating” the wetlands to make the habitat more sustainable.
First, crews from Wood Brothers Construction drained the wetlands with a large pump.
Taking the water out of the wetlands doesn’t mean the whole thing will be dried out, but removing a majority of the water there helps make way for the heavy machinery used in the renovation.
Next, crews are removing vegetation that competes with the habitat of the wading birds that live in the wetland. This process is leaving a large mound of mulch in the wetlands, which some nearby residents and passersby have noticed in recent weeks.
“The plan does look good long term, it just isn’t great right now,” one commenter wrote on Facebook.
Sarah Nutter, who lives nearby, said she was concerned about the birds being displaced during the renovation process. She said she heard birds fighting throughout the night earlier this year because they didn’t have a place to roost.
“I think some of the birds must have moved to a different location because, even though I still hear some fighting, it doesn’t seem to be as noisy,” she told The Island Packet.
The mulch will be left on the island where the rookery will be replanted.
Crews eventually will plant vegetation that provides good nesting structure for wading bird colonies. The canals in the wetlands also will be cleaned out.
The video shared by the town says that the wetlands will be restored to their condition from 29 years ago.
The renovation is expected to last until spring, but the work is dependent on weather.
