By Scott Graber
It is Wednesday and I’m in Hagerstown, Md., sitting in the lobby of the Hampton Inn, where I’ve got a cup of their complimentary “dark roast.” The lobby also comes with the ubiquitous monitor which is now giving us “Wake Up Weather.”
But my ancient brain cannot focus on the heat that is hanging over the East Coast. This morning I’ve been talking with my son, Zach, who has just given me a report on the “workshop” that happened yesterday involving Beaufort City Council and Mike Horton from Davis and Floyd.
My son reports the crowd, mostly people from the Old Point, were uniformly against the pumps that Horton is promoting for the drainage of King Street. The Point people argue that simply replacing the old, clogged pipes will provide enough protection from what they consider minor, infrequent flooding.
Some of my readers may know I have written about this $10 million stormwater project three times. My views are well known and I come to this controversy with an opinion. And my opinion is that Mike Horton is telling the truth when he says that upgrading the existing pipes will not do the trick. That Horton is being honest and accurate when he says that changing out the old pipes will work when a big rain coincides with low tide; but that a pipes-only solution will fail when a hard, lengthy rain coincides with high tide.
“Its like Russian Roulette,” he said to me earlier this morning. “Every time you’re betting that a big rain will come with a low tide. …”
I can understand why the Point people don’t want a half-submerged, concrete pump house just off Federal Street. I understand that they don’t want two utility buildings in the park adjacent King Street. But I don’t question the data, the models and the conclusions provided by Davis and Floyd.
The day after the workshop, John Ginder wrote an e-mail advocating for a second opinion regarding Mike Horton’s conclusions. Apparently, Conway Ivy has suggested that the Point folks hire someone to “conduct an independent engineering analysis of a gravity based alternative to the proposed pump station and electrical buildings for the King Street Drainage Project. Such a study would compliment and perhaps challenge the existing analysis and would, in any case, build greater confidence in the results …”
“In a controllable gravity-based system, an electric sluice gate would be used as an automated tide gate at the pond outfall. These gates consume a small fraction of the power of large pumps and can be energized by solar power. …”
Assuming the Point cohort is serious about an “independent engineering analysis”, it will require confirmation of the rain and sea level-rise data collected by Davis and Floyd; confirmation that the models created by the Davis and Floyd are correct. Or not. And time for the City to choose the right model — all of which is now constrained by a deadline — December 31, 2026.
I am a retired trial lawyer, and a part of me says this “alternate study” is actually a strategy to run out the clock. But assuming this is a genuine search for truth, let’s get the Point analysis underway today. And, more importantly, let’s be sure about an extension beyond the December 2026 deadline.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
