Participatory and Spatial Analyses of Environmental Justice Communities’ Concerns about a Proposed Storm Surge and Flood Protection Seawall
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Area
2.2. Research Approach
3. Results
3.1. Community Concerns and Opinions
“If these areas didn’t exist, these communities didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be who I am.”“I see it as a badge of honor to be able to be a resident there [in Rosemont], I see it as a badge of honor for me to live there and raise my children there.”
“…there’s a lot of historical values about Rosemont. It’s one of the first black African American neighborhoods established after the Reconstruction Era…the land, the people, are all very important in the history of the City of Charleston.”
“When I was a kid in the city, it didn’t do much good, but one of the things they did about once a quarter is they’d open the drains on the side of the street, you know next to the sidewalk…they’d reach into the drains and they’d pull stuff up out of the drains and make sure the drains were clear. That kinda thing doesn’t happen anymore.”“…we don’t even have a drainage system on the sidewalks or our roads…there’s no place for the water to go except for downhill.”
“A neighborhood where the people have a place to congregate like a park or something with activities…a clean space, like I said where somewhere people can go to relax.”“I would like to see more green spaces, drainage improvement back here…”
“…Rosemont, we know that it floods more frequently now because the water runs off of the interstate.”“...you can see under the bridge, like if you go further [downtown] you see paved areas, but this is what we have [unpaved and large puddles], and you see the people coming through with this big truck over here [a large truck was parked underneath the bridge].”“It would be a lot better if there were just trees and not the intrusive highways and trucks and other traffic that comes with it, and the pollution that they bring with them.”
“…once [SCDOT] added [the sound wall] and rebuilt that road a lot of that stormwater runoff…I believe it’s come down into the neighborhood.”
“I think [Rosemont] will be a very popular neighborhood in the next five to ten years. Gentrification is happening everywhere, and it’s a little bit slower where we are but I think eventually we will see more and more people pop up and I don’t think that a lot of residents are gonna get paid the worth of what their land is worth and their houses are worth.”“I believe that our taxes are going to be going up here soon, and those who have fixed incomes, how do you continue to…be able to live in an area like where we’re living in…”
“A lot of people fear displacement, they feel like it’s a way of gentrification for the area…because the truth is a lot of these homes are not gonna be able to be elevated and they know that, and it’s just gonna be a way to say we can’t do this, we’re gonna have to buy you out. And especially people who have been here all their lives, where are they gonna go? Even for me I love the location, it’s just so convenient to work and places that I frequent all the time, and with real estate so high right now in Charleston you can’t find another home, everything’s so expensive.”
“I’m afraid with that wall, that water is gonna come here.”
“I think we pose a really strong issue for our seniors who have bad knees, bad hips. Even though three feet doesn’t sound like a lot, that’s an extra two to three steps that someone has to climb in order to get in and out of their house…”
“...we don’t want to leave anyone behind so let’s not leave Rosemont behind, that’s where my concerns are, that’s where the residents’ concerns are…”
“It used to be a really beautiful community…but it seems like as the years have gone by the City of Charleston…they don’t keep up with the community and our needs…I feel like we are a forgotten community.”
“If they could successfully elevate the homes then that would be great, I’m all for it…I just really don’t see it happening, I think the Corps will probably say in the end that it’s too expensive to do.”
“The changes I hope that with each passing generation some sense of newness will come about, with different social groups that will come in and offer some sense of guidance to a better place that will take hold and start elevating, especially the youth, making quality of life better for them. With the community council, it’s about trying to be informed about the different things the city is implementing or wants to implement, and how we can get into that and be a part of it and garner some of this sense of opportunity to help us grow and help us expand…”
“One of my uncles worked really hard in helping the community. He pushed for the drainage to be modified and updated. Pushed for having the streets paved. Because of his activity and my grandfather, my grandmother and my mother because of their civic involvement we got to know a lot of people…A lot of people were just barely literate or totally illiterate. My grandfather was also a notary so people would come to him to get documents notarized, but they also came to him if they had an important paper, they brought it to him so he could read it for them. Seldom, people made legal decisions without consulting with him. And then my uncles, and eventually me and my daughter, fell in that role.”
“I would like to see…a real opportunity for us to sit down with our councilmen…and see…why they have discluded Rosemont from the report, from the seawall, and it’s kinda just have the opportunity to have an open discussion…that’s something that would make residents feel a lot safer and also understanding where their thought process is coming from.”
3.2. Report-Back Meeting
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Question | Interviewee |
---|---|
What year were you born? | Community resident/leader |
Tell me about your community; can you describe your community in three words? | Community resident/leader |
How long have you lived here? | Community resident/leader |
Why is this place important to you? | Community resident/leader |
In what ways has your community changed in the time you’ve lived here? | Community resident/leader |
Take me through the average week in your life; where do you go on the Charleston Neck? What do you leave your community for? | Community resident/leader |
Do you fish or gather plants, or know of community members who do? What animal or plant species do you or others target? | Community resident/leader |
Tell me about the last time your community experienced a flood (if it ever has). Can you describe this experience? Can you describe where this flood occurred? | Community resident/leader |
Can you tell me about the most severe flood your community has experienced? | Community resident/leader |
How are people’s daily lives affected by floods? | Community resident/leader |
Have you noticed a change in the frequency or severity of floods since you’ve lived here? | Community resident/leader |
What has been done by either the community, the city, or the County to reduce flooding in your area? | Community resident/leader |
Can you think of ways your community would benefit from construction of the wall? | Community resident/leader |
Do you have any concerns about potential negative impacts from the wall on your community? | Community resident/leader |
What would you like to know about the proposed seawall and its potential effects on your community? | Community resident/leader |
What types of information, maps, reports, or presentations do you think would be helpful for us to include in the project? | Community resident/leader; City official |
How would you like to receive the results? | Community resident/leader; City official |
Do you have any questions or general comments for me? | Community resident/leader;City official |
How would you describe a “resilient” Charleston? | Community resident/leader; City official |
Which parts of the City would you say are the most vulnerable to flooding? | City official |
Outside of the wall, what steps is the City planning to take to reduce the effects of flooding in the upper part of the City, including Rosemont? | City official |
Are there any plans to work with North Charleston on understanding impacts of the seawall on the other communities in the Charleston Neck, like Union Heights, Windsor, etc.? | City official |
If City Council doesn’t approve the wall, what alternatives has the City considered to manage flood risk besides constructing the wall with the Army Corps? | City official |
How do you see the upper part of the City benefiting from the seawall project? | City official |
Has the City considered how the seawall may affect adjacent areas in the upper part of the peninsula, beyond the Army Corps’ surge modeling? What, if anything, do you think those effects would be? | City official |
Demographic Characteristic | Coding | N (%) |
---|---|---|
Age | 30–50 years | 3 (37.5) |
50+ years | 4 (50.0) | |
Affiliation | Rosemont | 4 (50.0) |
Union Heights | 2 (25.0) | |
Garden Hill | 1 (12.5) | |
City of Charleston | 1 (12.5) |
Content-Based Code | Sub-Code | Illustrative Quote |
---|---|---|
1–3 word description of community | Positive descriptors | “important”; “home” |
Negative descriptors | “isolated”; “underserved” | |
Changes in community | Attitudes/activities of residents | “…people started moving out and people came in renting…some people if they’re renting it’s not theirs so they don’t care about it.” |
Demographics | “Before it was an all African American community and now you see other ethnicities moving in the neighborhood.” | |
Upkeep | “The City of Charleston…they don’t keep up with the community and our needs like we need them to.” | |
Amenities | “But there were a lot of things this community had…like a little grocery store, we had cleaners…businesses and stuff in this community, you know all that changed.” | |
Infrastructure | “The only major change I see is that wall that they put for the exit, supposed to be a soundwall.” | |
Why is community important | History | “...there’s not many neighborhoods left like Rosemont…it still has the historical presence, and a lot of the people are descendants of those who started our neighborhood…” |
Residents | “We have a lot of elderly people that are very very friendly, and they also look out for one another here.” | |
Grew up there | “It’s where I grew up, it’s home.” | |
Quiet | “It’s nice and quiet…” | |
Fishing | Importance of fishing | “I fish a lot, that’s something I’m really trying to teach my daughter is how to live off the land” |
Downtown (Charleston) | “My brother does, he goes downtown fishing” | |
At Northbridge Park | “...we went over north bridge here and right along there we went there to go fishing. | |
Fish species | “Spot tailed bass, what we call red drum, and whiting and tell you what, they had some humongous catfish in there.” | |
Types of fishing | “crabbing, shrimping, fishing” | |
Gardening | Concerns about contamination | “I want to grow a garden…but with that chemical plant so nearby I’ve always had concerns about growing food and actually eating it here in this neighborhood” |
Gardening in the past | “[Name redacted] had implemented a garden a few years back…for a couple of seasons that went really really well, they were feeding off it, but then it kind of just died down.” | |
Transportation | Bus | “We have people who use the bus system…” |
Walking | “I walk around a lot, walk to the park over there, to the beginning of Rosemont then back to the end of Rosemont” | |
Driving | “I do leave; I leave here every day for work and my son attends school on James Island so we have to take him to school and pick him up” | |
Important places | Community center | “...our community center is very important…” |
Grocery store | “Food Lion” | |
Convenience stores | “…we have a couple convenience shops within the neighborhood, one is GoGos…the next one would be the gas station on the other side of Meeting Street” | |
Churches | “churches in Rosemont” | |
Downtown Charleston | “I think everybody does most of their living downtown.” | |
Marsh | “the marsh right there in Rosemont” | |
Rosemont Park | “People do like to come and just kinda sit in the park.” | |
Personal stories | - | “One of my uncles worked really hard in helping the community” |
Miscellaneous concerns | Gentrification | “…that leaves then Rosemont barren, which opens up the door for gentrification…” |
Characterization that community does not flood | “The community has expressed concerns with flooding within their neighborhoods, and they are worried about the characterization their communities do not flood.” | |
Drainage system | “We need them to fix the drainage system around here” | |
Traffic | “People come speeding through here all the time all day long” | |
Tree Maintenance | “We got trees that need to be cut” | |
Racial discrimination | “It’s one of those communities that’s culturally underserved” | |
Lack of transportation | “If they don’t have a car, they’re stuck” | |
Lack of water access | “To not have [access] I think deprives them of the amenities of living there along the water and the marsh.” | |
Contamination from local industries | “We are in the factory area, so that could be very dangerous with runoff from the factory and that going back inside of the marsh and how that could affect our people.” | |
Economic hardship | “…the one thing that’s held our people back is the lack of generational wealth.” | |
SCDOT’s sound wall in Rosemont | “I don’t feel like it’s helped us, when you’re outside you can still hear all of the traffic on the interstate. I hate how it looks aesthetically for the neighborhood, it looks awful.” | |
Flooding | Experiences with floods | “...my dad used to have to pick me up to get to the door to put me in the car, we always had boots…” |
Road paving in Rosemont | “’Now because of the paving in the street… there’s this little like gully that’s filled and the water spills over the sidewalk over to my property…’” | |
Highway construction | “They were doing construction on the overpass…that might have caused streets that were flooding that didn’t get flood” | |
High tide flooding | “If they get a high tide [Rosemont] can have flooding” | |
Sources of flooding | “That’s one source for Rosemont, the marshes. The other source is the higher streets and the third is the sound wall.” | |
Wildlife drawn to floods | “I don’t love the sound of hearing frogs and crickets or whatever other creatures are out there cause of the water.” | |
Mosquitoes | “there’s mosquitoes breeding right in my yard” | |
Changes in flooding | Increased flooding | “...it has become a major concern, all the years I’ve been back here it’s never flooded like this back here.” |
Drainage | “I think it goes back to if the drains are cleaned regularly on a regular basis” | |
SCDOT sound wall and road construction | “Once they added that wall there and rebuilt that road a lot of that stormwater runoff…it’s come down into the neighborhood, because before there was trees and stuff there, and you didn’t get all that runoff.” | |
Resilience definitions | Maintaining heritage | “...we can still keep our memories and our heritage, you know, our home…” |
Gathering space | “a neighborhood where the people have a place to congregate like a park or something with activities” | |
Communities working together after a disaster | “When in ‘89 when Hurricane Hugo hit here, this city was tore up, but we came together as a city, as a community, and all the communities came together and pitched in and removed all that debris” | |
Green space, drainage | “I would like to see more green spaces, drainage improvement back here” | |
Cooperation | “It’s gonna take…people settling differences…that’s how we can build a better, resilient Charleston in my eyes, and we gotta get our church leaders and everybody involved” | |
Benefits of the seawall | Better overall protection | “…from a project as a whole, that would give us the opportunity to protect ourselves a lot better…” |
Preserving Charleston | “We need to preserve this history, we need to preserve this culture, we need to look at keeping the city functional” | |
Nonstructural mitigation | Nonstructural mitigation | |
No benefit | “I don’t see any benefit to it at all, actually I feel it’s gonna be a disaster for the neighborhood” | |
Concerns about the seawall | Increased taxes | “For those that are living on fixed incomes they might not be able to make those new tax regulations…” |
Contamination from local industry | “Residents have expressed concerns with [nonstructural mitigation] due to the ineffectiveness to prevent and/or reduce damages attributed to storm surge impacts such as floodwater carrying pollution” | |
Increased flooding | “I’m afraid with that wall, that water is gonna come here.” | |
Being left behind | “We don’t want to leave anyone behind so let’s not leave Rosemont behind, that’s where my concerns are” | |
City/USACE not following through on discussions | “The idea that we’re gonna do this later, like you’re kicking the can down the road man, you’re throwing up these distractions to say you’re gonna appease me with this nonsense” | |
USACE unable to elevate some Rosemont homes | “Many feel their homes would not meet the elevation or flood proofing requirements, and they will be forced to give up homes they have lived in all of their lives.” | |
Elevated homes in Rosemont | “I think we pose a really strong issue for our seniors…even though 3 feet doesn’t sound like a lot, that’s an extra 2 to 3 steps that someone has to climb” | |
Questions about the seawall | Why Neck is not included | “...you’re trying to preserve a certain area, is that one area more important than all the others?” |
Design | “I’m really curious as what is this wall going to look like, and how are we supposed to get out of this wall” | |
USACE’s communication | “I would like to know what they have done to inform all the people, all the neighborhoods” | |
Impact on park system | “where we are with our park system throughout the City of Charleston” | |
Suggestions for community improvements | More green areas | I would love to see more green areas somehow incorporated in the neighborhood.” |
Drainage | “The community feels strongly there needs to be an improvement to the stormwater system.” | |
Streetlights, bus shelter | “I think we need more streetlights, we definitely need like maybe like a bus shelter” | |
Space for senior citizens | “if they could get maybe a senior citizen place, or if they could upgrade that building so senior citizens can go in there and do activities during the day” | |
Suggestions for this study | Discuss advocacy | “…express our sense of advocacy for betterment of the community, no more no less, our just due.” |
Pictures of flooding | “photos of the flooding” | |
Elevation and aerial imagery | “elevations,” “GPS and satellite images” |
Topic | Sub-Topic | Illustrative Words/Quotes |
---|---|---|
Concerns | Increased flooding | “If you’re trying to keep the water out of this area then where is the water going to go?” |
Difficulties for the elderly and disabled | “I think we pose a really strong issue for our seniors who have bad knees bad hips…” | |
Displacement | “someone said they were worried about eminent domain for those houses that physically can’t be elevated.” | |
Increased taxes | “When they raise taxes that can cause people to lose their homes.” | |
Isolation/being excluded | Being outside a wall will act as a barrier and will isolate communities. | |
None | “No” | |
Benefits | For Charleston as a whole | “preserving this is commendable” |
For the Charleston Neck specifically | “They’re getting the same level of surge risk mitigation as the rest of the city.” | |
Nonstructural mitigation | “I think that it would be a good thing for those who don’t have disabilities.” | |
None | “I really just don’t think it’s gonna benefit us at all.” | |
Questions | Wall location | “How are we supposed to get out of this wall, if it only has 4 exits” |
Wall aesthetics | “I would like to know what the material is made up of.” | |
Nonstructural mitigation | “How will homes be selected for elevating?” | |
Evacuations | “If we have to evacuate during a flood, are they going to come and get the elderly” | |
Communication | “I would like to know what they have done to inform all the people.” | |
Resilience | Space to gather | “A neighborhood where the people have a place to congregate…” |
Interconnectedness | “I think that if we can work together… that’s how we can build a better, resilient Charleston” | |
Heritage/history | “We can still keep our memories and our heritage you know, our home” | |
Recovering from a hazard | “When Hugo came and the idea what we’re gonna do, how we’re gonna do this, and minds came together…” | |
Suggestions | Fix drainage system | “...we need them to fix the drainage system.” |
More green space | “I would like to see more green spaces” | |
USACE to consider a broader range of impacts | “Have some vision to say, how is it going to impact the farthest reaches of the Ashley River all the way to [Bacons] Bridge Road in Summerville and beyond.” | |
City of Charleston to be more inclusive | “Include us now in the dynamics of what has to be done …” | |
Considering a range of EJ issues | “Residents have expressed concerns with [nonstructural mitigation] due to the ineffectiveness to prevent…floodwater carrying pollution” | |
More streetlights | “I think we need more streetlights.” | |
Bus shelters | “We definitely need maybe like a bus shelter, ‘cause we got the sign, but we ain’t got no bus shelter.” |
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Taylor, J.; Levine, N.S.; Muhammad, E.; Porter, D.E.; Watson, A.M.; Sandifer, P.A. Participatory and Spatial Analyses of Environmental Justice Communities’ Concerns about a Proposed Storm Surge and Flood Protection Seawall. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 11192. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811192
Taylor J, Levine NS, Muhammad E, Porter DE, Watson AM, Sandifer PA. Participatory and Spatial Analyses of Environmental Justice Communities’ Concerns about a Proposed Storm Surge and Flood Protection Seawall. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(18):11192. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811192
Chicago/Turabian StyleTaylor, Judith, Norman S. Levine, Ernest Muhammad, Dwayne E. Porter, Annette M. Watson, and Paul A. Sandifer. 2022. "Participatory and Spatial Analyses of Environmental Justice Communities’ Concerns about a Proposed Storm Surge and Flood Protection Seawall" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 18: 11192. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811192