Letter: Don’t take away citizens’ rights

South Carolinians do not have many avenues to protect our beautiful state. So it is important for us to preserve the few rights we do have to protect our environment from development that has not been thoroughly vetted.

The current law permits us, after paying the required fees in the accepted time frame, to invoke “automatic stay” which temporarily prevents or delays construction on a project while a review or vetting of the permit for the construction is completed.

The current Senate Bill S.105 and House Bill H.3565 would strip us of this right.

Once construction has started, it is too late for us to ensure that our environment is protected. In the event that the construction proceeds without complete review or vetting and is injurious to our environment, it is most likely the taxpayers who will pay to ameliorate the problems created by the construction.

In a state that is struggling to pay for schools and infrastructure, it seems foolhardy to burden the taxpayers with potentially huge expenses to reverse the damages from development from which the developer has taken maximum profits and moved on. In many cases, the damages will be too profound to be repaired at any cost.

We as citizens of the state of South Carolina as well as the world must make our legislators aware that we do not want this right taken away from us.

This story was originally published February 22, 2017 at 1:47 PM with the headline "Letter: Don’t take away citizens’ rights."