Nearly 1/3rd Of South Carolina Rivers Unfit For Recreation - WCNC

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- State regulators say they are making progress on improving the quality of waterways, but nearly one-third of the state's rivers are unfit for recreational use. The South Carolina Sierra Club Water Committee said 31 percent of the rivers in 2006 had bacteria counts too high for bodily contact. That was up from 19 percent two years earlier.

Officials with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control say they have been working on the problem for years. "We absolutely feel like we're making progress on impaired waterways," said Adam Myrick, a spokesman for the agency.

The primary pollutant is fecal coliform bacteria -- which comes from human and animal waste -- and gets into waterways as the result of storm water runoff, faulty septic systems, farm animals using streams and sediment from farms and grazing areas.

Of 1,972 water sites monitored by the state, 915 were rated as impaired by the agency during monitoring from 2000-2004, the most recent figures available, Myrick said.

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