Hilton Head, SC Arbor Nature trash dump permit DHEC

If you live on Hilton Head Island, it’s likely you’ve heard the name “Arbor Nature.”

It could have been in relation to tree maintenance your neighbor had done after Hurricane Matthew. Or you may have heard its noisy tree-grinding operation on Leg O Mutton Road. Most recently, you’ve likely heard about it as a potential trash dump.

The tree-grinding and landscaping business has long ruffled feathers for its operation near Indigo Run. After settling a lawsuit with the Town of Hilton Head Island over noise, the company moved to a new location earlier this year near the Hilton Head airport.

Now, Arbor Nature has applied for a permit with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to create a solid waste transfer station — a construction and demolition trash dump — just up the road from the Hilton Head Island convenience center.

More than 200 residents flooded a virtual call last week to ask questions and to express their opposition to the permit. They say the proposed dump is too close to homes, could contaminate streams that lead to Fish Haul Creek and will cause too much truck traffic on Dillon Road.

This guide will answer some of the most burning questions about what has happened and where it’s going:

1. What is the permit for?

Arbor Nature has applied for a solid waste transfer station permit for its property at 26 Summit Drive.

A solid waste transfer station permit is different from a landfill permit in that it allows waste and debris to be held temporarily at the site instead of permanently stored there.

Up to 240 tons of trash and debris can be on the site at any single time, according to DHEC.

The solid waste transfer station will not be publicly accessible. It is not a town trash dump, but for use by construction and demolition companies to dispose of waste while they’re completing projects on the island.

If the permit is approved, up to 10 trucks per hour would take about six minutes to enter the site and deposit construction and demolition materials before heading back toward Dillon Road, according to the permit application.

Adam Congrove, Arbor Nature’s owner, said Friday that his transfer station, if approved, will cut down on truck traffic across the Hilton Head bridges.

“We’re not trying to create a traffic nightmare, its actually the opposite,” he said. “You can fit 10 trucks worth of garbage into one truck (from the transfer station). Rather than leaving the island 10 times, you only leave the island once.”

2. What is allowed on the site?

The 4-acre site is zoned by the Town of Hilton Head Island for light industrial uses. Those allowances include waste-related uses, but not a waste treatment plant.

A solid waste transfer station is a place where solid waste is taken from trucks and collection vehicles and placed in other transportation units to be moved to another solid waste management facility. The nearest waste management facility is Hickory Hill landfill in Ridgeland.

To operate the solid waste transfer station, Arbor Nature must apply to DHEC for a permit. The company did so in March.

Among the items that would be accepted at the waste transfer station:

• Construction and demolition debris including asphalt, concrete and bricks

• Debris from land-clearing, including brush and tree branches

• Dead animals, which Congrove said his company would dispose of within 24 hours

• Lead-based paint

• Asbestos-containing materials, which Congrove said his company is unlikely to accept because nearby landfills do not accept them either

• Shingles

• Glass

• Box springs and mattresses

Arbor Nature would also be allowed to recycle some materials on the site.

3. Will Arbor Nature get the permit?

All signs point to yes.

To decide whether Arbor Nature can obtain the permit, DHEC considers only the buffer and design requirements for the property, which require the operation to be:

• 100 feet from the property line
• 200 feet from any surface water, excluding drainage ditches and sedimentation ponds
• 200 feet from residences, schools, hospitals or recreational park areas
• 100 feet from any drinking water well

The operation also cannot be located in wetlands.

Perhaps more important to those interested in the project, DHEC officials said last Thursday in their presentation that they do not consider nearby traffic on roads, general opposition to the project, property values, zoning/land use, incompatible uses or suggestions for alternative uses in the permit review process.

That has incensed some residents, who say public input and consideration of surroundings need to be part of the permitting process by a public agency.

DHEC spokesperson Laura Renwick said Thursday that the department will take public comments and share them with Congrove.

“Although the State Regulations provide the framework for what DHEC can consider in making permit decisions, the comments that we hear from communities related to traffic and other quality of life concerns are often addressed by permit applicants who typically are willing to go beyond the minimum requirements in order to be good neighbors,” she told The Island Packet.

4. What’s the timeline?

A virtual public question-and-answer session took place Sept. 10. Another was scheduled for Sept. 17 but was canceled due to weather effects from Hurricane Sally.

The next meeting, another public question-and-answer session, will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 24.

To register, you must use an online form available on DHEC’s webpage dedicated to Arbor Nature.

A public hearing of the permit application will take place on Oct. 22.

5. Who can do something?

So far, DHEC has delayed public meetings and scheduled additional question-and-answer sessions due to the massive turnout.

Glenn Stanford, a Hilton Head Island Town Council member who represents the ward in which the waste transfer station is proposed, has spoken out against the permit in email blasts and in Town Council meetings.

However, when he provided public comment at last week’s meeting, some residents were disappointed that he opposed the project as a resident but did not use his platform as a council member.

S.C. Sen. Tom Davis, who also spoke at last week’s public meeting, told The Island Packet that he’s unhappy with DHEC for not considering residents’ quality of life in the review process.

“DHEC needs to stop looking at this so narrowly. They’re looking at this in the traditionally bureaucratic way,” he said. “They are the state agency that is supposed to protect the public from having its natural resources denigrated.”

Davis said that if the staff decides to approve the permit, he will appeal the decision to the full board of directors, which can overturn a permit.

“They have to do their due diligence here,” he said. “The Lowcountry in particular is a very poor place to have facilities like this. You’ve got water tables very close to the surface, you’ve got wetlands in close proximity and a fragile ecosystem.”

6. Where is the town on this?

The Town of Hilton Head Island does not issue a permit for Arbor Nature’s new business.

DHEC is responsible for issuing the solid waste transfer station permit, the composting permit, the construction stormwater permit and the coastal zone consistency determination.

But neither the town council nor town staff has opened any type of review on the permit.

The town’s silence on Arbor Nature comes after a years-long battle with the company. Its new location on Summit Drive was handpicked by the town in a settlement agreement.

The Arbor Nature dispute began around 2016 when then town land management official Teri Lewis sent a letter to the company stating that it was out of compliance with the town’s land-use rules following noise complaints from neighbors in Indigo Run.

The argument by nearby residents is that Arbor Nature misrepresented itself as a wholesale nursery only to become a solid waste management/tree-grinding operation that was too noisy.

Arbor Nature appealed Lewis’ letter to the town’s board of zoning appeals, which stood by Lewis’ decision. When the company appealed in circuit court, the town reached a settlement, which was approved in June 2017.

In accordance with the settlement, the town leased the current 4-acre portion in the Summit Drive area to Arbor Nature for one year for $1 in April 2019.

Arbor Nature then purchased the Summit Drive property for $300,000. It planned to use the site for tree grinding between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. In March 2020, Arbor Nature applied for the solid waste transfer station permit instead.

The town rezoned the old Arbor Nature site on Leg O Mutton Road to prevent tree grinding. It can still be used for residential or commercial development. Arbor Nature still operates an office on the property, according to its legal counsel, Chet Williams.

Congrove told The Island Packet Friday that he still plans to do tree grinding on the Summit Drive property and that the land has been cleared there.

Meanwhile, due to disagreements with Beaufort County, town officials said Tuesday the town convenience center is likely to close at the end of the year because the county did not adopt more than six months of funding in its budget for the operation.

County officials have said there are issues with companies dropping construction and demolition debris at the public center, which is less than a half-mile south of the proposed Arbor Nature site.

Congrove said there has been no coordination between him and Beaufort County to in any way replace the convenience center.

7. How is this different from the Okatie trash pile?

Davis and some Hilton Head residents worry the Arbor Nature site could turn into an environmental threat.

A mound of trash and debris by an industrial park in Okatie, Able Contracting’s Recovered Material Processing Facility, caught fire last summer and spewed toxic smoke and fumes over homes and businesses.

The facility’s operator stored used construction materials there before grinding them up and recycling them.

A loophole in an outdated state law allowed the operator to accumulate a 90-foot pile of debris. The resulting fire prompted a $5 million federal and state cleanup of the site.

“I see this as similar,” Davis said. “There could be no liner (underneath the waste), and it is in close proximity to waterways. I see parallels between the two.”

8. Have more questions?

The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette newspapers will follow the permitting process and other Arbor Nature developments.

If you have questions or comments on the permit or Arbor Nature, use the form below to submit them. A reporter may contact you about your submission, but nothing you submit will be used without your explicit consent.