Columbia SC Rivers: Hidden Gems, Riverfront Plans & the Future of Our Waterways

Most people know Columbia as the Capital City, but few realize that one of its greatest assets is flowing right through the heart of it.

In this episode of the Soda Citizen Podcast, we're joined by Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stangler for a fascinating conversation about the Saluda, Broad, and Congaree Rivers and why they play such an important role in Columbia's past, present, and future. 

We discuss what makes each river unique, the incredible recreation opportunities available right here in the Midlands, the future of Columbia's new riverfront park, and how conservation efforts are helping protect these waterways for generations to come. Along the way, Bill shares some unforgettable stories, from unusual discoveries during river cleanups to rare wildlife, hidden spots along the river, and the work that goes into keeping our rivers healthy. 

Whether you're a lifelong Columbia resident, new to the area, or simply love exploring the outdoors, this episode will give you a whole new appreciation for the rivers that make our city unique.

In this episode, we cover:

•  The differences between the Saluda, Broad, and Congaree Rivers 
•  Columbia's exciting new riverfront park project 
•  The best places to kayak, tube, fish, and explore 
•  Wildlife you can spot along the rivers 
•  How the Congaree Riverkeeper protects our waterways 
•  Water quality, conservation, and local environmental challenges 
•  Hidden gems and fun stories from life on the river 

If you enjoy discovering the people, places, and stories that make Columbia, South Carolina such a special place to live, be sure to subscribe to the Soda Citizen Podcast so you never miss an episode.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

All right, y'all. So on this episode, we've got some really cool stuff going on because you probably know that we're a river city, but you probably don't know much about it. So we've got Bill Stangler here, who is the riverkeeper of the Congregate. Is that really a title? Are you like the riverkeeper? I am your Congregory Riverkeeper. Oh, like that's like the axe, the whole thing. That's how we say it. Yeah. All right. So he's the one making sure that we can swim, fish, float, do all that stuff. And he's watching, making sure nobody's messing it up. So thank you for doing this. Thanks for being here. You've been heading this thing up since like 2011. So you've seen a lot of stuff in the river, haven't you? Uh yes, I have. And we've picked up a lot of stuff from the river.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

What's the craziest thing you've pulled out of the river?

SPEAKER_01 0:37

I can't say that. Okay. What's the second craziest thing? Oh man. Body? You never found a body? No. Okay. And knock on wood? I will not. Any pieces of body? No, I thought I we've thought we've found some weird stuff. We've definitely found weird stuff. We had a guy one time in a cleanup and he's like, oh my God, you've got to come over here. I found these bones. I think they're human remains. And so we stopped everything. Okay, take me over. And he points to it and he goes, What is it? And I looked at it and I said, Well, it's it's a rib. He's freaking out and his friends freaking out. And he's like, How do you know? And I said, Well, the food line packaging next to it says ribs. Um, so pretty sure it's ribs. Not the human guy. He's like, Yeah, those are pork ribs. So but for like 10 minutes, everyone freaked out.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

Panicking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

That's awesome. Okay. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

That's it. Yeah. That's the only fun thing that you've ever pulled out of the book. I mean, we've we pulled out shopping carts, we've pulled out full TVs, I've pulled out like a guns and off the bridge. We have not found the I've found ammo. I haven't found like an actual like handgun or anything. When they did the coal tar cleanup, those guys doing the big cleanup, they found a bunch of random stuff. They did. Um things like that. But I mean, we get a lot of the usual trash, tons of plastic, it's plastic wrappers, things like that. Uh, we do occasionally find, I mean, it's a lot of tires and things like that. We find some adult items. Well, where else are you gonna put them when you're not with them? Yeah, you throw it in the creep gas.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

Please.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

And so, and then, you know, all sorts of random stuff like that. Uh the creepier one was we found like a dismembered doll surrounded by used needles. That was super creepy. I bet so. We found like a children's Halloween book, and a couple of the pages were stuck together with what looked like blood. Oh, this is like an October cleanup. It was very on-brand, but also very like disturbing at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. There's some weird stuff in the cleanups.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

So let none of the fun stuff's out of the way. Let's take a step back. Explain to everybody what Congore Riverkeeper does, where you operate, and kind of the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

Wait, can you first explain how our river works? Because they're like two that come into one, and I think some types of marriage and people hear Congoreen, they hear broad, and they hear you know, salute and all the things. You know, it's like, oh no, yeah. So maybe just real quick. Sure, your question first, Mary. Well, I mean, people that live here, but people that don't, for sure. You know, they're like, wait, I thought you there were all these other rivers.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

So uh we've got three rivers here in the capital city that that are kind of the big three rivers around the Midlands. And so you've got the Saluda that comes out of the upstate of South Carolina, you know, comes down from the Greenville area, makes its way through some lakes, Greenwood to Lake Murray. The the section that I'm responsible for of the Lower Saluda is where it comes out of the bottom of Lake Murray Dam and runs down to the confluence right here in downtown Columbia where it meets the broad. So we've got that 11-mile stretch of the Lower Saluda. It is an awesome stretch of river. That water comes out of the bottom of the lake, so it's like 55 degrees on average year-round. So it's it's cold, but when it's 99 degrees in Columbia in the middle of the summer, it is the best place to be. And that river has some of the best urban whitewater in the U.S. So you've got uh class two, class three, if they're letting out some water, class four rapids. So you can go down those rapids and you can see the Columbia skyline. You've got uh Spanish moss hanging over you. It's really crazy. It also supports trout. So those are fish you would normally find up in the mountains, but DNR stocks them sometimes by helicopter into that river. So you can catch these trophy mountain, you know, rainbow and brown trout on the lower Saluda if the you know river conditions are good and the river's healthy, something you couldn't normally do. So that 11 mile stretch of the Saluda is really awesome. It's a designated state scenic river, as well that recreational value.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

We've got the broad river that comes down from North Carolina and that winds its way down. That's why it's so dirt. Um it does run a little muddier. If you're ever like standing and looking at the confluence, you're driving over the bridge, you're like, man, the broad does look a little muddier. Um it's mostly because we don't have the big lakes like Lake Murray to be like a settling basin where the broad is mostly free-flowing. There's some dams, most of them are rollover dams. So our jurisdiction on that stretch is the 30 plus miles above Columbia from the Par Shoals Dam, which is kind of near peak, if you're familiar with that area, uh, on down to where it merged with Columbia. That stretch of river, also super amazing, much less developed. It's got these shoals and then these flat water stretches. Um, it's home to a bunch of things. It's where I see the most bald eagles, it's where I see the most river otters. It's home to the rare Rocky Shoal spider lilies, which are those beautiful flowers. You're driving over like 126 out of town, those flowers blooming in the middle of the river right now, this time of year, those are Rocky Shoal spider lilies. So there's a bunch of populations up and down the river. Actually, on Monday, I'm getting in a plane to go do some aerial reconnaissance and take photos of those because it's a little quicker than paddling all that stretch with a limited access. So those two rivers merge right there. Uh, you can say the beginning of the Congregate River is the Gervais Street Bridge, and then that winds 53 miles down first couple miles, you're still in the Piedmont. So you've got those rocks and little shoals. Once you get below Columbia, the river starts to do these big curves, these big meanders. You've got sandbars, you end up going past Congaree National Park, South Carolina's only national park. Down on that stretch of river, it's like going back in time. A lot of it is designated wilderness. There's a lot of conservation easements on the other side. It looks like it did several hundred years ago to several thousand years ago. Occasionally you'll go by an industrial facility. We might talk about that in a minute. Um or you know, you might see a John boat, but there's times you could go. I've gone a couple days where you don't see anything else and anyone else, and it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

So that's 90 miles of river that we work to protect, and it's it's all centered right around, you know, downtown Columbia. And it really does make us a river city, like you said earlier. Um, we've got these three awesome rivers, each with unique characteristics that are just such a cool part of this area.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Yeah. Now, I mean, I know you're an expert, kind of an expert on the rivers. I have floated the river down the Saluda. Also kayaked it. Also put in the peak one time and got out at the Harborson. You did the long haul on the broad. Yeah. Yeah. I used to have like a like a 17-foot like Neki and uh I'm too big for a uh whitewater, I mean an open water kayak, uh but did that. I've done something else. Oh, I I paddled the congregate, I did it overnight at the Congregate River. It's all like 15. Okay. I have not had the cajonase to go from Gervais all the way to 601, though. I really want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

The best way to do that is to do it in like three days. Really? Um, you can really take your time, you can enjoy, you know, you get you camp out on the sandbar, you know, you can take a little side hike into the national park and see the big trees, do some of that stuff. There are people who used to do it as a race, and the fastest time I think they clocked was like just over eight hours. Oh those are crazy people. Yeah. And I don't think that sounds like fun. Um some people do. Yeah. But uh no, I think, yeah, doing that multi-day, yeah. That's it's such a neat uh experience to be in that part of the park and to be on that stretch of river and doing that. Uh we use a jet boat to access most of that now. So we do our patrols down there. We've been doing them pretty regularly, and I'd say it's also a little bit easier to just run the boat down.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Yeah, yeah. Well, so I think a lot of people don't realize that, like, is it maybe Rosewood landing? Like, once you get past 77, like there's no pulling out really of that river until 601. Like, you can try and get into the state for I mean the national forest. National Park. National Park, yeah. There's not really any housing sites or anything. Like, there's nowhere to pull out, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

So the pub, the the public access, you've got Rosewood, and then you've got the one in Casey there. Right. Once you get below those, it is 47 miles before you get to the next public access. So if you're gonna do that, you are committed. There's some private boat ramps, they're not for anyone to just try and use. You cannot easily go back up into the park and catch like Cedar Creek. So it is a commitment. It is like a multi-day or crazy, you know, really, really long haul commitment to do that. Uh so yeah, that is that is a thing. If you're gonna push below, we every once in a while I get a call. Someone's like, hey, how do I get out from here? And I'm like, You have made a poor choice. Yeah, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

You should wave at a job boat and hope that they're friendly and they will pull you back. I see firefighters every once in a while on the 77 bridge, and you can tell that they're trying to find like people that floated too far, and they're like, Yeah, this is where we got to get you out because you're not getting out after that. Plan accordingly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

What time of year should I do that? So you if you want maximum sandbar, then you know, the low water, we've got low water right now because we're kind of still in a drought, but we've also got, you know, during the summer, you've got that, but it's a little warmer. I like the fall, but there's always this risk that, you know, if you're planning a long trip and it takes, you know, you're planning for a couple days, a storm could screw that up.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

And the other thing to think about is those conditions can change really quickly for a number of reasons. You know, if they have to turn on water at the dam, something like that. So I I found that out the hard way. I woke up and our canoe was about to float away, and you know, there was water next to my face in the sandbar, which luckily, actually, luckily, a river otter woke me up. So I was like, oh god, this is really cute. Oh god, grab the canoe. So um, yeah, pay attention to those and and really tie that boat off. Pull it way up, tie it off to something else.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

So speaking of animals, um we get I've gotten a lot of calls. I'm sure Maryland has too. Like, people kind of call Columbia the I call it the alligator line. Like, people think nobody north of Columbia really has like water snakes or alligators, but we got some friends, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Um yeah, so there are certainly, I mean, there's a the wildlife lives along the rivers, um, and we have gators in the Columbia area. So every couple years we'll get kind of a a lot of buzz about, hey, some folks saw one at maybe it's that Rosewood boat ramp or the Casey boat ramp. Um, but there are regularly alligators coming up into the broad and even in the Columbia Canal. So if you go there, you'll see signs. They're not there for no reason. I, when I first started, uh, I guess it was maybe when I was in grad school, so starting as river keeper, we did a, we were doing some research out there, and I had an alligator swim circles around my kayak right there off of Riverfront Park, right next to the Columbia Canal. Now we call that guy Bob. Bob may actually be three different gators that move in in different years. It was small, he's got a little bigger.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Um, but so there are gators up there. They don't seem to like the cold water of the Saluda. So if you're dangling your feet off a tube, you probably don't need to be super worried, but always be aware uh of that. Um, but yeah, I mean, they you know, they can go up the broad river that's warm water, uh, and they'll do that. We definitely see them much more downriver. So there's definitely some large ones in Congri Creek, which is over in Casey, that goes into the Congri below I-77. Definitely some at the National Park. Yeah, uh, there's a ton in this old Oxbow Lake, which is like a cutoff river meander off of 601 called Bates Old River. I used to do research out there, and we would just plan to see gators when you're down there. So, yeah, they will make it up to the Columbia area. So if you're gonna jump in the Congoree when it's warm or you're bringing your dog, be really aware. Yeah, yeah. Just pay attention to what's going on.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

I just want to I'm gonna get that out of the way.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

We get a lot of people that literally, I've had somebody call before and they're in Miami, like, we're gonna buy a house in Lake Murray because we won't want to be around gators. I'm like, all right, close.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Close. Yes, I don't know how they get up the dam and over, but like we've I've heard stories about Lake Murray gators. I've never personally seen that, but I'm not a lake keeper, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, it's the next next uh iteration of your job, right? Yeah. So what do you do as the so it's the river keepers, Congregate River Keeper and that that program? What is your job? Like, what are you out there to do?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah, so Congreg River Keeper is a local grassroots nonprofit that works to protect the three rivers. I like to tell people we do everything from organizing volunteer cleanups and collecting water quality samples to working on policy issues at the state, federal, local level to dragging polluters into federal court. Yes, yes, you drag them. You like physically drag them. They feel like they've been dragged. Um we do that. We're part of a larger group called Waterkeeper Alliance. So there are waterkeepers and river keepers on six continents. We've got folks working everywhere except for Antarctica. We're gonna recruit some penguins. We'll get there. Um and it's all under this basic idea that these rivers are a common good, that this water belongs to each and every one of us, and that no one person or one company or one entity has the right to damage them so that you can't use them. These are your rivers. Um and so there's a bunch of different folks doing this kind of work all over. We are localized here, so I don't, you know, I don't work for anybody in New York or DC. I work for folks here in Columbia, so we're locally based. And yeah, we work to protect the three rivers. So it's it's outreach and education, advocacy, and enforcement of environmental laws.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

Yes. Do you have a badge?

SPEAKER_01 12:51

I've people have asked me, like, you should get a badge. I was like, I think that's gonna get me in more trouble. I have a hat. Um my mom embroidered a shirt. Oh, yeah. I've got that going on.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

All you need right now, right? Great. Well, what would you say is kind of like uh one of the best local secrets or spots on the river? So I'm supposed to give away my secret spots? Maybe not.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

I mean, there's there's so many different ones for each of those stretches of river. So if you catch the saluta at the right time, because that cold water and you've got that warm air, you get this mist that forms on the saluta. So if you're up at Saluda Shoals Park, you can really see it. If you go, but anywhere on the Saluda, especially if you go earlier in the morning or maybe right after a rain event, you have this mist that forms. And so there's some spots where you can just stand out on the rocks well into the river. And you know, you can you can hear the water, you can see a little ways, but there's this just it's almost this eerie mist that floats across. And it's it's such a cool experience and such a cool feeling. So I love that. Um there's a bunch of places. Again, you can really see it up at Saluta Shoals, but you can see it at the Saluda River Walk off Candy Lane and by the zoo there as well. Again, I'm very partial to the spider lilies. Yeah. Uh that's what I did some of my research on in grad school as well. So there's some spots where you can just be among these big populations of spider lilies. And there's some in the confluence that are accessible. If you're doing one of those tubing trips or you're kayaking in the downtown area, right as you come into where the two rivers start to come together around what's called White House Rapid, there's some big populations. It's called lily islands.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

Do not pick those flowers.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

They are a rare and threatened species, and I will hunt you down.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

So, yeah, uh, take photos, but do not take the flowers. Be very careful around them because that one that you may accidentally stomp on or pick could be the future of this entire species.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

They are very rare, these only occur in a handful of places in the entire world. They're only found in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. In those states, you can only find them mostly on large rivers. You get a couple that tuck into some creeks, but mostly on that. And in those rivers, you generally find them at these rocky outcroppings. So there's maybe 30 to 40 populations of these in the entire world. We have a handful right here on our rivers.

unknown 14:58

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

So that stretch on the broad that you did a while back, there's a couple populations up there that are hard to get to. There's one that's like across from the prison. It takes a long trip to get to it, and you really can't get out if you want to stop. There's an island, but you cannot get out on the banks. Right. You'll get mad. So there's that, and then you've got these ones along the broad. So there's a spot that I love downtown where you can kind of come down through the confluence, go behind an island, and come up right behind a population of spider lilies. And if you kind of get low, you cannot, you don't even see the highway. Right now, you can see some construction on the canal because the city's putting in a new water intake.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

It's kind of ruining the vibe a little bit. How do we feel about that? But when they're done with it, then you know you might be able to lean and miss the blue roof that they're gonna have over there, and you can just be in these spider lilies, but then you'll turn around and the next thing you're seeing the Columbia skyline, you're you're in the middle of downtown, but you've got these rare, beautiful flowers in the middle of this river. It's this real escape. So I love that. And then there's something about being on one of these sandbars down in the national park, like just sitting on a sandbar thinking about who else has passed by this over the years. And you know, and and you can tell people have done this for a long time because you can dig through the sand and you can find pottery sherds and you can say, Okay, these are really old. And then you can find pop-top beer cans and say, Okay, these aren't quite as old, right? A little cashier, and you can find some other stuff too, but uh but there's this evidence of people enjoying and using and living along and and being on these rivers for so long. And the other thing about those sandbars is yeah, it's just you know, you don't have to go all the way to the beach. You can just take a boat down or paddle down and do one of those multi-day trips, and you've got your own private beach right there on the congaree.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

A lot of people, there's a lot of boaters that get on the river. I didn't never realize that until recently. Well, last couple of years. Maybe I'm wrong now.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Until you line up at a boat ramp. Like Rosewood, a lot of Joe John boats, right? So, yeah, especially during like uh striped bass season. So striper season, folks are getting out there, they really want to go and do that. Uh, and so there's there's some really popular times of year when you see that. Um, but yeah, folks, it's also just a thing for people to do. So we talk to those folks a lot, um, especially when we're running our patrols. And yeah, there are a lot of folks out there who are running John boats, a couple of jet boats, depending on the water level. You'll see some folks bringing out pontoon boats, things like that, and running up and down river. Um so yeah, a lot of folks using all sorts of different watercraft from you know tubes to kayaks, canoes, you know, fishing boats, and uh folks just wading out there, swimming out there, and even just enjoying the river from the banks.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Yeah, no doubt. So question we'll let's talk about the new park that's coming out in a second. But as a river keeper, is it good that our rivers are not uh developed, or is it is there like a plus and minus to it? Because like we don't really have anything on the river in most part, like development wise in Columbia.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yeah, so it there's a couple ways to look at that. One is how do you define development and like what does that mean? Uh in a lot of places when you talked about riverfront development, you're talking about pushing concrete and buildings up to the edge of these rivers. That is a bad thing. Rivers need space, our river floods a lot. So if you built stuff like that, uh it would have problems. Yeah. Uh but riverfront development can also mean things like parks and protected green spaces and trails, things that people really want. And so we're in a unique position in Colombia. We did not build up to the edge of our rivers. So there are cities around the country that are spending millions and millions of dollars to peel back that concrete, to peel back that that industrial landscape. And a lot of it was especially um, it was a lot of industrial stuff. Sure. Next to the river is where you're gonna put your factories, it's where you're gonna put your sewer plants, it's where you're gonna put your stuff that you know you don't want people to see. Uh, because they're gonna dump it in the river. They're gonna go put it down there anyways. Uh and so we didn't do a lot of that. Uh and so we have a lot of this river frontage that is undeveloped, and that is a great thing. It means that we can do it right, it means that we have these opportunities to put in sustainable infrastructure, that is, the kind of things like park amenities, without screwing it up. And that's what we've been pushing the city of Columbia and everyone else who's involved in this new riverfront project on to do. So far, I've been pleased with what I've heard. Yeah, uh, they gave a presentation and I was like, oh, these look like my slides. Um saying all the right things. We'll see how that uh happens in the end. But yeah, I think we have an amazing opportunity. And again, we want people to be able to get to the rivers. If you have people who can get to the rivers and enjoy those rivers, they become advocates for them. You have to do it in a smart way, and that is not a ton of concrete, that is not a ton of asphalt, that is not buildings in the floodplain. And I I've heard overwhelmingly from the citizens of Columbia that's what they want. Now, occasionally I'll hear someone say, Oh, we want the San Antonio Riverwalk. You're not getting it. Um we shouldn't have that. Right. Um that's our river is different. Again, it fluctuates a lot, it floods a lot. I'm gonna be honest, that San Antonio Riverwalk, that's a fake river. It's a canal that comes up the side, they empty it and dig it out like once a year. It's not the same thing. Yeah, we're not doing that. So there's no river keeper for that one?

SPEAKER_03 19:44

No.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

They're the fake river keeper. So let's talk about the park. Um, we got a private tour, which was kind of cool. We got some, hopefully, some video we can put in there of it. Um did not realize, been here 20 plus years, you've been here your whole life. Did not realize how big of a parcel that is. Almost a hundred acres. Yeah. We saw deer, we saw, I don't know, other stuff too. I don't see a turkey. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. Did we see a turkey? Possibly. You could have. I mean, that's certainly.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

There's a bunch of stuff out there, especially since it got fenced off for the coltar cleanup. And so there's been less people pressuring in. Yeah. Wildlife has certainly come back in that area in a big way. So yeah, I mean, we startled some deer when I walked through it with some of the folks. I remember standing there during the coal tar cleanup and having two bald eagles just perched right above us.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

And we saw some osprey.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

There's an osprey nest right above it, so there's definitely osprey through there. I mean, there's a ton of wildlife there. But that's that is, yeah, it's it's you know, between Gervais and Blossom Streets, it's a stretch of riverfront that is gonna be this kind of cornerstone park. It's gonna be this huge thing that I think is gonna really be part of our identity as a city. Uh, if you visit, where are you gonna go? There's a couple things. I think that big riverfront park is gonna be one of them. Um, and so again, doing that right, making sure that's a thing that embraces that that natural feel there and embraces the nature that is there, but lets people get to and enjoy the river is gonna be really important.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah, yeah. Well, they've got supposedly planned. I mean, obviously it's still in the beginning stages, but having park rangers, having things that you can do as amenities too, not just stay on the banks, but put in, pull out kayak ramps, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

I mean, access is gonna be important, and that's gonna be kind of tricky. There's gonna be an interesting, and and I even wonder how that's gonna work. Because I I want to be able to put my boat in there too. And you build an access, okay. Then you build parking. Do we want that much of this park to be parking? How far do I have to haul my boat? If we do some smart stuff like drop-offs and more remote parking and and set up things like shuttles, that's gonna be an interesting piece where we're gonna have to navigate that. But uh, yeah, I mean, just preserving that natural character of the area is gonna be super important. And of course, if you're gonna tell people, hey, we've got this beautiful river park, you need to have the amenities. You need to have things like bathrooms and and stuff like that. So please. Yeah. And you know, people want people want other things, so you might have to have some space for food trucks, you know, get an ice cream cone, that kind of stuff. Yeah. We can make that fit in an area. While still again, preserving that natural character while not putting a bunch of structures in the floodplain that are going to get wiped away by a big flood. You can figure that out. And so that's that's where they're at in the process right now is what is this gonna look like? What does everybody want? And how do you do it in a way that you can legally get built permit and that is gonna accomplish all these different goals?

SPEAKER_02 22:19

So they're gonna have to come through you to go out of this approved.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Like I don't issue permits, I comment on them and occasionally we challenge them. But I I we've been very and the city gets this. I mean, they said they wrote in their request for proposals, some of the constraints, and they wrote us in as a group that they need to consult with when they talk about it. So uh you know, there's a bunch of other folks who are in that too, but we're one of them. We've been talking to different people. But we, you know, there's a bunch of different sites where people have said, Oh, we should build here, and you know, just I'll occasionally politely say, like, just remember, if you really screw this up, I've got lawyers. It's gonna take a while. So do it right and talk to us first.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Yeah, this might be a little controversial. Oh, yeah, but are you like pro paper straws?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

So I don't love plastic straws. I don't, yeah. So paper, I don't love straws. Um I don't really need I don't need straws a whole lot. Okay, so yeah, I mean, like I generally try and turn down a plastic straw if I can, because I've pulled enough out of our cleanups that they annoy me. Um but they're not our number one plastic pollution problem. Plastic bags, on the other hand, really annoy me because I pick up I picked up thousands of plastic bags. Right. And I've seen the plastic bag industry folks just lie their faces off at the legislature to be like, this isn't a problem. Right. I'm like, come to a creek cleanup with me. And you tell me the same approach.

SPEAKER_04 23:37

Are they just like blowing off of things or people are just literally dropping bags in the ocean? I mean, in the river.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

I mean, I I think there's a lot of different ways that these get out. So a lot of it is that careless littering and you know, stuff whether it falls out of a trash can where it was supposed to go, or someone balls it up and tosses it out. There's a different bunch of different ways. Yeah. But the plastic pollution that's really been irking me lately is nurdles. I don't know if you've heard of these. They're also called pre-production plastic pellets.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

So these are the little Oh, the little things that come in the pouches.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

No, so you might find them in there, but what they're really used to, these are the building blocks for all the plastic stuff that we use in our daily lives, from you know, water bottles to food containers and things. And they're before they turn them into that stuff, they start as these pellets. And so they're shipped all over the world. And so a couple years ago, there was a big deal about these in Charleston. There was a shipping facility that had a huge spill and they were washing up on the beaches in Charleston. But we've been finding them on the Congaree River.

unknown 24:31

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

And so that's a real concern because we're not just finding one or two. We've found, I think, as of this last week, I've picked up 10,000 of these things in the Congoree River, including all the way down at Congore National Park.

SPEAKER_04 24:44

How do we get the nurdles in our river?

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah, well, the company that makes nurdles is on the Congaree River, one of them. And so we had we've been looking at that. We actually filed a notice of intent to sue against two of these nurdle producers because we expect that they are the ones that are doing it. So when I get annoyed about plastic, um I'm I'm mad at people who litter plastic bags. I'm annoyed that we still are giving out plastic straws all the time, although I understand some people like them and want them. But a corporate entity, billion-dollar companies who just dump their plastic waste in our river, that's what really gets me mad.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

Me too.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Um, that's something we've been working on for a while now. So nurdles, nurdles kill turtles. I don't know that that's 100% true, but it does. It sounds good. So that's that's the thing we've been working on a lot. Um these ones sink because they're PET plastic. So it's it makes them kind of trickier to find. And yet we have still found 10,000 of them. Yes, you're keeping them for the lawsuit. Oh, they're in my office. Oh, yeah. They're all in little vials, numbered, dated. We have like protocols for how to do the sampling. I photo document. I have to count these. So like I picked up a you know, you know how long it takes to count a thousand nurdles on your coffee table?

SPEAKER_04 25:52

You can only imagine. It's a fun Saturday night. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Oh, it took more than days. It took me days. I was eating meals around these piles of nurdles on my table. So we are still working to hold the folks that are responsible for that accountable, but uh, we work with some very good attorneys, and they are literally right now writing up some stuff.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

So, yeah, how much of your job is kind of like not enforcement, but like, yeah, like calling because I follow you on social media. So, like I saw the other day, like you found some balloons, I think, and some trees.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yeah, that was that was fun. That was just us trying to help. Uh I mean, yes, we did find some balloons, and balloons are also enough. Feel like I'm like the anti-fun guy. Yeah. You get no balloons and straws. If you put confetti in a storm drain, I'm coming out. Yeah, so we were working with some partners like uh Palmetto Pride on uh talking about uh banning balloon releases, which is technically already uh kind of a great area, like it's littering. Yeah, if you throw those balloons up in the air, while it's kind of a you know, you might be doing it for a good reason, they have to come down somewhere. So that is littering and they can harm uh wildlife, certainly. Um, we've seen a lot of evidence of that. And the folks at the South Carolina Aquarium have well documented that issue. But also uh livestock. So we've heard from farmers all over South Carolina and other places, those balloons, when they come down, they could be eaten by livestock and it can kill them. Sure. Um also if you think about what happened recently in Georgia with those wildfires, one of those fires started because a Mylar balloon hit a power line and started a fire. Yeah, it's a huge problem. So we were working with them to try and clarify the law on balloon releases, making sure that people know, hey, you could be charged with littering and you could be hit with if you cause like a major problem, you could have some penalties. I don't think it's gonna pass. So we do some legislative work. Um that's what you saw us talking about there on that. So we do that kind of state level policy work as well. And then, yeah, the enforcement stuff is a little different. Uh so I get to pretend to be a lawyer, but I mean, at any given time, we're usually running at least one, if not more, federal lawsuits on a major pollution issue. Right now we've got two active, two active federal cases against major polluters on big issues, the plastic thing I was just talking about, and then the forever chemicals issue on the Saluda that I think we're close to resolving, but still gonna take a little time. We're signed on to an amicus brief at the South Carolina Supreme Court with a bunch of conservation groups. Um and then you know, there's always some other stuff in the hopper. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

The polluters beware. But the goal's not, I mean, I'm I'm asking it's more of a question. I guess the goal is not actually to get money out of lawsuits, just to either have them clean up their money out of the way. We don't get paid. Right. It's to get it cleaned up, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:26

I mean, so I mean the the goal is to clean stuff up. So when we sue somebody, our goal is to is to fix that problem. So when it was Carolina Water Service dumping sewage in the Saluda River and violating their permit, and they shouldn't have even been there, they were supposed to end their discharge on the river, you know, a decade before we even came around. The goal was to get them to stop.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

We were able to do that. Now they got hit with the penalty. I got to hold a settlement check for all of 20 seconds before I had to hand it off to a third-party group because we don't collect money on those lawsuits. We can make it go to good projects. Right. So the settlement for that uh sewer lawsuit ended up paying for this monitoring program that is now doing weekly sampling on the three rivers for people to know if water quality is good for them to go out on the rivers. And I didn't get any money from that. Right. Uh it goes to a project that I very much care about and a bunch of local partners care about, but like I didn't get paid. I didn't go to my paycheck. Yeah, yeah. I get that. I held that check for like, again, 20 seconds. That was really cool. I was hoping it was gonna be bigger. The amount was fine, but like the size, I was like, uh, novel check. I didn't do that. So and that's how that works. Um and you know, if we do another settlement, we'll put it towards beneficial environmental projects and things that help protect and restore our river, but we don't collect money on that. Now, my my attorneys can get paid. Sure. Uh that's like a legal thing, and they they do a lot of good shit. If you're guilty of like violating the Clean Water Act, yeah, you're gonna have to pay my lawyers.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

Right, right. Well, I'm curious outside of the well, actually, include the river. If you had a magic wand and like money was no object, like what's something that you would really like to see Colombia have? It could be anything. River related or something. If I gave you that big old check. That is you could bring any you could put anything in Colombia. That's what else has to be. That's a big question.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

I'm gonna have yeah, I mean, there's like easy answers here for stuff like that. All right, does it have to be Clement? Can I get like uh rail between Greenville, Columbia to Charleston?

SPEAKER_04 30:21

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

I think that would be like if I if money's no object, I would love to hop on like uh like a train and be in Charleston in you know an hour rather than have it to sit in traffic on 26.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Um not river related at all, just like a thing I think would be really cool.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

You can always hop one, just jump one on five points and see where it goes. You're like, I'm in Rosebood. This sucks. I'm great. I'm at the Nerdle Factory.

SPEAKER_04 30:46

No, and you're like, you would end up at the Nerdle Factory.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

You ever feel you ever feel unsafe? Like corporate people are like watching you and send some bullies around to break some knees.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

You know, some people told us one of the companies we see there, like, we think that they're tied in with the mob. And I was like, I'm not worried about that. Like, my friend was like, I don't know, like I found some nails in my tire, and I'm like, You're driving through construction sites, and like it's not what's happening. No, I I'm not terribly worried about that. Um, like they want to get more headline, you come beat me up. I've had some people yell at me, some things like that. Um, the corporate folks, they do most of their uh threats through lawyers, yeah, and that's that's what they do. You know, we've had them say, Oh, we're gonna bury you in legal paperwork, and this is gonna cost you a million dollars in legal fees, and it'll take forever, you'll never be able to see this through. And you know, my answer to that is I have literally nothing better to do with my time than pick fights with polluters. Like, this is my job. Yeah, and I don't pay my lawyers. Yes, you're gonna pay them later. And they were like, oh man, we've never dealt with this before. So but we've had some I've had some interesting interactions where people like your individuals yell at me for stuff, and that's when I get a little more nervous. Sure. You know, yeah, had had people had someone pull a gun one time and had people threaten, but uh, I'm here. I came out of it all fine. Nobody's actually shot at me. So start taking DNR with you on the river.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah.

unknown 32:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

Do they uh honor the river that they uh actually get out and float on the river like they would like a lake or anywhere else? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Oh, DNR's out there doing a bunch of stuff. So uh especially at like really busy times, they'll they'll either hang out at boat ramps and check folks for all sorts of safety stuff and fishing limits, or you know, they'll roll out on their boat. They've got a boat. Um we compared our boats the other day. They're very similar. Um they're just newer and a little more. But uh, yeah, I mean, uh I had them roll up on me at the boat ramp one time, and uh the guy's like, Hey, what you been doing out there? And I was like, Oh, I'm just out, you know, pulling some stuff. And he's like, What's in the cooler? And I was like, You want to see what's in my cooler? This was uh bacteria samples. I was like, I got a lot of eco line. He was like, Who the hell are you, man? The other guy comes down, he's like, Oh, it's Bill. It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

It's fine.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

It's okay. I was like, Yeah, I mean I had a fishing rod in the boat because I always keep one in there, but you know, we need a kitchen. I'm like, yeah, mostly just sample jars full of bacteria, bro. So if we had to hide a body, where would we start and where would we end? Yeah, why don't you ask like Siri, and then that'll just be in your record and you've thought about that before.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

Don't put bodies in the river. Yeah, it's true. Don't DT in it, don't put anything in it. Keep it all, keep your trash out of the river.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

So, all right, going back to the river for a minute. Where can somebody that's just coming to visit Columbia, instead of standing on a bridge, like would it be Saluda Shoals would be the best place to kind of experience the river, or I guess the river walks? Like, how how could they best experience it?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah, if you're if you're visiting, and let's say you're not ready to go rent a kayak or your friend doesn't have a boat that they're gonna take you on, you're not gonna do the the multi-hour tubing trip or whatever. I'd say there's a couple good spots. And unfortunately, we've got uh some of our like river access points are on and off with construction issues with different things like that. Um, but Sleuda Riverwalk has got to be one of my favorites. So that's Candy Lane. If you're going up, like you're going to the zoo, instead of going left to the zoo, you take a right down Candy Lane. You can go there. There's a little boardwalk that goes around Millrace, and you can go down, and there's a bunch of rocks you can walk out on and be kind of out in the water. You can go upstream. I feel like most people get there. They turn left, they go downstream. Right. Super cool. They go upstream, secret spots. And you can also find some really good areas where you can kind of pop down, be out on the rocks, out in the water. On the water, you can see the river. If you time it right, you get that mist. But even then, you know, you can yeah, you might see an osprey go and dive and pull out a fish. You might see a fly fisherman catch that really big rainbow trout. So, Saluda River Rock, you got a couple miles of trail right there, super accessible. Yeah, and you get some of the the really like prettiest stretch of river.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Can you fish? And I've never been on that part of it actually. Can you fish from the river walk? Are there places to walk out to?

SPEAKER_01 34:31

You could like pop out onto the rocks or from the banks uh on some spots. A section of that is catch and release only for trout, because we're trying to get these trout to like live and reproduce. So mind the signs. You know, there may be a DNR guy in the bushes waiting for you to put it out. Hey, did you put it back in? Because that ticket's gonna cost you. And make sure you have a fishing license, all that good stuff. But uh, yeah, so you can fish from there. There's a bunch of different spots, and in certain times of year, you will see people, you'll know where people are doing it because they will be lined up uh casting over each other, trying to get that, you know, that striped bass that are coming up the salute or those trout that are in the salute.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

So for outfitters, are you are you if you're willing to, like what are some local outfitters uh places, stores? I'm gonna have a couple, I'm curious what you're gonna say, to get gear or rent kayaks or stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Yeah, so there's a lot of different folks around town. Uh some that that do the rentals and do the trips, and then some places that are just good to go get gear and things like that. I think most the the one that I used to work for is closed. Uh Adventure Carolina was like one of the earliest along with River Runner, were like the first ones. So that Adventure Carolina era ended several years ago. But uh there's some of those, and then there's some other folks around. So you've got some folks that do a bunch of trips down at the national park and do those canoe trips. You've got folks that do the tubing rentals, and so uh Palmetto Outdoors does tube rentals, a lot of different folks do the national park trips. You've got some other folks who are doing a little bit of both. We're not seeing as many of the folks do the what I used to call like the bread and butter, like kayak trips, three river kayak trips as much anymore, but they're still doing those too. And then you've got a bunch of different outdoor, like uh outdoor recreation businesses doing stuff around town. So, you know, you can go get your gear from any number of places, like uh Half Moon Outfitters, a Mass General store or an REI, all of whom have supported us in some way. Um and our work because like it matters if you want to be a part of a recreation economy and a like a recreation river city, you got to have these places to do that. And and they get that we bring a lot back to the table. So a lot of different folks that are doing that, and then some of the parks have their own built-in like rental stuff. So like Saluda Shoals does some of their own rentals. If you've got a big group, um, there's a group called Canoeing for Kids, and they are a nonprofit. They actually do most of their stuff is spent trying to get uh underprivileged kids out on the water who might not otherwise have those opportunities, but then they also run some big trips to help kind of make that work. So uh they're a really awesome group that we'd love to partner with on a bunch of different stuff too.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Yeah, okay. Nice non-answer.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

All those stores. I got it. Yeah, sounds good.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

RIP. If I didn't answer you and you want me to say something, you can send me a check. No, made out too.

SPEAKER_04 37:05

He can be bought. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Yeah, so I appreciate this conversation because people ask us all the time about the rivers. We're getting a little more involved with the parks and some other stuff, and it's still not easy to get on the rivers, but it is you know the places, yeah. It's great. And we've it's been probably 20 years they've been working on the different river walks connecting them and doing all those things.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Yeah, it's been a while to try and I mean when I came to Columbia, and this was yeah, about 20 years ago, a friend of mine was like, Hey, I'm gonna go with some friends and we're gonna go check out the river. And I was like, Oh, is it a thing people do? Yeah, he's like, Not really. But he's like, Some people do, and so he took me to this spot that's uh it's now off the Saluda Riverwalk, but you would go, you know, back when you could get from the lower end of the zoo out of there, and I saw all these people hanging out, and you know, it was kind of a party scene. Those it was it was all sorts of different people, you know, they were drinking beers, they were listening to music, there was stuff going on, and then I saw some folks float by in a kayak, and I was like, that that looks really cool. Yeah, how do I do that?

SPEAKER_04 38:02

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

And these guys were like, I don't know, we just come here and drink beer. And I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna look into this. And so I ended up taking uh uh kayaking class at USC, and then I figured out some of these spots, but it has changed dramatically since then, where it was like, Yeah, you're gonna have some fishermen and some like dirtbag kayakers going out to the river, and then these party people, and now it's like everybody, everybody wants to be out there, and we've we've built up this access, and there's a bit of a double-edged sword there. Um, when you've got more people, you do have more trash, you do have just more pressure on that resource, but again, everyone wants it. Uh, we were not talking about our rivers as like a tourism thing 20 years ago. For sure. Yeah, it was ignored. And now we're putting them on billboards. We're you were talking about, you know, I'm not the only one saying, hey, this is a river city. Yeah, so uh that has really changed, and that's been really neat to see. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we appreciate you being the river keeper, seriously.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Like the little Lorax for the river.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

That is exactly what my nieces say. That's how I explain it to like my nieces and nephews. I was like, that came as a compliment. Yeah, awesome. But no, seriously, like uh we've been fortunate to help sponsor some things and do some karmic eggs with y'all. And how are how can people best support you? Either getting involved volunteer-wise or financially?

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah, there's a bunch of different ways. So, I mean, obviously, yeah, make that donation. Um, you know, folks who give us $20, $50, $100, that helps us do the work that we need to do, be present, whether we're responding to pollution calls or organizing those cleanups or pulling those samples or doing those lawsuits. But also it gives us standing. So, like, you know, when you become a member and you give us that that $50 check, it's not just money that goes into the accounts that we can do the work. It's also when I go and I speak in front of city council. I'm not just Bill speaking on behalf of the rivers. I've also got our hundreds of members behind me and I can speak on their behalf. And that works when I'm, yeah, again, at a city council, when I'm testifying at the state house, or when we go in that federal courtroom and I have to stand and hand over a document that says, hey, you know, we are an organization, we represent X hundred members who care about clean water and healthy rivers. And here's my list of standing witnesses who are harmed by this pollution. So that's a really important piece. So become a member. Okay. But uh there's other ways, yeah. Like you said, volunteering at one of our cleanups. I've got one coming up this weekend. That cleanup filled up in about two hours on the sign up. We have a bunch of people who love to volunteer. It's great. So if you do sign up to volunteer, it might be a while before you get on a cleanup because you know we we have kind of limited space on those cleanups, and our cleanup, our volunteer list is something like 1,300 people right now. Good problem to have. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, definitely sign up for that. I think the the other thing that's really impactful is pay attention to what's going on and respond when we have, we put out action alerts. We say, hey, contact your elected official, hey, show up at this public meeting and give your feedback. Hey, sign on to this petition or show up and submit a comment letter on this. Do those things because again, like I said at the beginning, these rivers belong to all of us, but they only belong to us as much as we're willing to stand up and fight for them. So get engaged. So follow us on social media, sign up for that newsletter, and then when we say, hey, speak up for your rivers, respond to that.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

Yeah, oh, fair. And we'll have all the um social media handles and website stuff in the show notes so people can click through that. But yeah, to wrap it up though, man, like we appreciate, we know it's probably a thankless job most days when you're counting nurdles and everything else. Like you're probably like questioning life decisions at that point, but I appreciate you doing that so that my kids hopefully one day can enjoy the rivers just like I did in college, maybe a little more sober, but still enjoy it. Um but seriously, so thanks for this job, but it's a big part of our city, and we appreciate you doing it.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Thank you. I think people have come around on a lot more and certainly see the value that we do. And I I do get to spend days on the river, so it's not entirely, but it's not every day. Everyone's got this idea that like I am in a kayak every single day, or we're on the boat. And I was like, no, there's so many Zoom calls, and there's so many like meetings, and there's so many me sitting through a meeting with a regulator that doesn't want to do something, and I'm just like hitting my head against the wall. But but there are good days. Um one last real quick. Um if folks are gonna get on the water, yeah, because we just started the sampling season last week, okay, they can check water quality. Oh, I did see a sub house my sc river, that's my scriver.org.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Um we tried the is itpoop.com website. That website was taken. Don't go to it. We actually have to. You bought that one. So how's my scriver? You can check. We post if there's an advisory. So if everything's good, the map is all green. And because this is Colombian, orange is a bad color. If there's an advisory, we put orange on the map. Um, so check that before you jump in the water.

SPEAKER_04 42:32

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Good to know. Good to know.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Don't don't poop either.

unknown 42:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

Brown structure. That note. Thanks, Bill. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 42:43

Thank you.