By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Beaufort mayor Stephen Murray spoke to a group of citizens about their environmental concerns on Thursday, May 4, 2023, at the Unitarian Fellowship of Beaufort on Lady’s Island.
Mayor Murray was the main presenter for the event and was invited by the Citizens Climate Lobby and the church congregation to speak about climate change and how it affects the City of Beaufort and the other coastal areas in northern Beaufort County.
“We talked about where the city is in terms of climate resiliency,” Murray said.
Murray said that in the mid-2010s, under his predecessor Mayor Billy Keyserling, the city of Beaufort set up a Sea Level Rise Task Force made up of citizens and other environmental groups, and they put together a road map for the city that is still being followed.
They also made note of several areas in the city where issues were arising between dilapidated stormwater infrastructure, rising sea levels and other contributing factors. Murray said that they city has been slowly trying to fix the issues on that priority list.
“The climate keeps changing, so we are just trying to get ahead of it, especially as the storms and hurricanes seem to be getting worse,” Murray said.
In terms of carbon footprint, several years ago the city of Beaufort put solar panels on four of their city facilities, they made sure to seal all of the windows and doors to better insulate them, they put in high efficiency LED lighting in most of the buildings, brand new high efficiency HVAC units that have centralized control, meaning that they automatically adjust the temperature in the building based on the time of day and if people are expected to be there.
Mayor Murray said with those small changes, they were able to save taxpayers 60% of what was previously spent on energy costs, and that money was used to pay off all of the equipment that was purchased to make the changes.
Delayna Earley lives in Beaufort with her husband, two children and Jack Russell. She spent six years as a videographer and photographer for The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette before leaving the Lowcountry in 2018. After freelancing in Myrtle Beach and Virginia, she joined The Island News when she moved back to Beaufort in 2022. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
