CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) —
South Carolina is growing, but not all growth is good.
At least that is what Leon Kolankiewicz, an environmental scientist with NumbersUSA and lead author of “From Sea to Sprawling Sea,” an environmental impact study that explores how U.S. population growth has driven rural land loss across four decades, said.
“You are making it very difficult to achieve your climate goals by increasing the number of energy consumers,” Kolankiewicz said in an interview with News 4. ” It just doesn’t work.”
From 1982 to 2017, 35 years, South Carolina lost 2,126 square miles to what Kolankiewicz described as urban sprawl – the loss of rural land to urbanized development.
To put that loss in context, South Carolina ranked 11th out of the 49 states analyzed in the 35-year data set. However, the Palmetto State was only the 40th-largest state. Though only 10 states were smaller than South Carolina, it was 11th in the amount of sprawl that took away rural ecosystems.
Cumulative sprawl – the development since South Carolina became a state – adds up to 4,269 square miles. That is 16th place for what scientists consider a relatively small state. In the 35 years between 1982 and 2017, South Carolina sprawled as much as it did in its entire history previously.
“This pace of development, rural land loss, is accelerating,” Kolankiewicz said. “So that, quite understandably, has a lot of South Carolinians concerned or even upset.”
“We face an issue of how human beings are going to live when there are 330 million of us in this country,” Kolankiewicz said. “We can’t keep doing that. It is unsustainable. You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
