As flood threats rise, wetlands across South Carolina could play an important role in fending off high water before it soaks homes, businesses, roads and other property that people depend on.

But wetlands that control flooding and shelter wildlife are in substantial jeopardy as a result of a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited federal protections for many of the watery depressions, according to a report released this week.

In one of the first reports outlining how many wetlands could be affected, an environmental group says South Carolina could lose federal protection on more than 1 million acres of wetlands. That’s more than three-quarters of the state’s wetland areas currently protected under the nation’s clean water law.

South Carolina is one of 20 states where more than 1 million acres of wetlands could be open for development with little or no government oversight as a result of the high court’s decision, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, which produced the report.

All told, the defense council report says a minimum of 19 million acres of wetlands could be unprotected and open for development nationally – an amount roughly the same size as the entire state of South Carolina. In the worst case, some 70 million acres, or about 84% of the country’s wetland areas, could be open for development as a result of the Supreme Court ruling, the NRDC said.

“This analysis reveals that the Supreme Court has torn the heart out of the country’s principal law to protect people from polluted water and from the consequences of destroying critical waters,’’ the NRDC report said, referring to the 2023 decision.

Under Democratic President Joe Biden, federal agencies had taken the position that while some wetlands protections were limited by the Supreme Court ruling, others remained. Republican President Donald Trump, since taking office in January, has signaled that the ruling will be interpreted differently and affect far more wetlands.

The Supreme Court decision “has exposed communities to increased flooding, threatened their drinking water supplies; undercut protections for wildlife; and made it less likely the places people go to fish, swim and boat will be clean and healthy,’’ the NRDC report said.

The ruling, known as the Sackett decision, curtailed the reach of the federal Clean Water Act in shielding wetlands from development and farming practices. The ruling said the act does not let the agency regulate wetlands near rivers, lakes or other water bodies unless they are connected to those waters. Many wetlands do not have that connection and are isolated from major waterways.

The court’s decision was in contrast to decades of legal precedent that generally said wetlands were subject to protections through the clean water law, enacted in the early 1970s to safeguard rivers and other waters from environmental threats.

To develop in wetlands, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must issue a permit after weighing the harm done by the proposed work. Often that means reducing the impact on a wetland before a permit is approved.

Wetlands, including swamps and bogs, are soggy depressions that have been protected by the Clean Water Act because of the environmental benefits they bring, including soaking up storm water and filtering pollution before it reaches rivers.

They also are rich with wildlife, providing spawning habitat and food sources for an array of species, including birds, fish and amphibians. The report said nearly half of all species listed as threatened or endangered by the federal government depend on wetlands.

Despite those benefits, wetlands can get in the way of development projects, slowing plans to build houses, businesses and public works projects, such as highways. Many developers , builders and farmers have long complained that wetlands rules are too onerous because they don’t often distinguish between minor depressions and major, ecologically important swamps.

Earl McLeod, former director of the Home Builders Association of Greater Columbia, said some wetlands are little more than slight depressions that occasionally fill with water. But he said the process to obtain permits to fill them can be time consuming.

“I would not call the process smooth; it’s anything but,’’ said McLeod, who is now retired. “Delays cost money. I don’t think anybody I’ve ever dealt with over the years intentionally wanted to destroy wetlands. It’s just a question of who defines what a wetland is and is not.’’

Steven Mungo, executive chairman of Mungo Homes Inc., said he’s interested to know how the Sackett ruling ultimately will be interpreted. Developers and home builders want rules that are certain and easy to understand, and they need limits on how long it can take the federal government to issue permits, he said.

“Navigating the regulatory environment regarding wetlands is very difficult,’’ said Mungo, whose company operates in 10 South Carolina markets, including Columbia. “I’m not sure Sackett is going to make it any better at the end of the day.’’

SC wetlands in crossfire

South Carolina’s wetlands include salt marshes along the coast, but the majority are freshwater bogs that dot the entire state, even as far inland as the mountains. Most of the state’s wetlands, however, are in the coastal plain. They include rare Carolina bays, densely forested flatwood wetlands and open savannas.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council report, wetlands in 10 South Carolina counties – mostly in the coastal plain – face the greatest threats from the Sackett decision.

Those include the large, high-growth counties of Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester and Horry, as well as smaller developing counties near the coast, including Jasper. But the report said Orangeburg, a mid-sized county in the state’s interior south of Columbia, also faces substantial threats to wetlands.

Charleston County, for instance, could find a minimum of 18,804 acres of wetlands and 4,910 individual wetlands open for development. But the numbers could be as high as 69,891 acres of wetlands and 8,291 individual wetlands depending on how the court’s ruling is interpreted, the report said.

That’s notable because more than 86,000 properties in Charleston County face an 80% risk of flooding in the next 30 years, the report said. Jasper, a gateway to busy Hilton Head Island, has 5,448 properties with an 80% chance of flooding over the next three decades.

Horry County, home to booming Myrtle Beach, has more than 39,000 properties with at least an 80% of flooding during that time period, the report said. It found that Horry County could lose protections of as much as 98,433 acres of wetlands.

Flooding can be associated either with sea-level rise that affects property on the coast or with flash flooding that occurs in interior areas of South Carolina. Rising sea levels and more intense storms are blamed for more floods.

The Natural Resources Defense Council study examined three different potential outcomes from the 2023 ruling: scenarios that gauge minimum, moderate and extreme results. Those impacts depend on how the Trump Administration interprets and applies the Supreme Court ruling, the council said.

To come up with the estimated acreage of at-risk wetlands, the NRDC used two national databases from federal agencies.The environmental group took that information, which includes maps of wetland areas, to look at what is considered protected and nonprotected areas.

In South Carolina, more than 325,000 acres of wetlands could be open for development under the minimum scenario. But in what’s considered the most extreme scenario, the government could open nearly 1.8 million acres for development, the report said.

The Palmetto State has about 2.3 million acres of wetlands now regulated by the government. Coupled with wetlands that are not federally regulated, the state has more than 4 million acres of wetlands, one of the highest percentages in the Southeast, federal data show.

In addition to wetlands loss, the report says the Sackett ruling also jeopardizes streams that dry up for parts of the year. The ruling says a minimum of 2.5 million miles of creeks would not be protected nationally. Anywhere from 44.7% to 55.3% of streams in South Carolina could lose protections, the report said.

The loss of federal wetlands protections, even with the minimum scenario presented by the NRDC report, could mean states will look at tougher rules to protect swamps and bogs locally.

South Carolina’s Office of Resilience has previously said the state needs a law to protect some of its most sensitive wetlands, including rare Carolina bays. Such depressions are unique to the Carolinas and Georgia, and harbor an abundance of wildlife.

Getting that done, however, may be a long shot in conservative South Carolina.

The state Legislature has rebuffed multiple efforts in the past to protect and preserve wetlands after hearing from business interests. Since the Sackett decision, wetlands protection has not surfaced as a major issue in the S.C. Legislature.

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