Floating toilets.....

[DUCKMAN]

The State.

Looks like all houseboats without septic facilities must be gone in 5 years off the public waters of SC if this bill passes.

[BOGSTER]

Luckily ours has a septic tank!!

[DUCKMAN]

Depends on how they write the law! Is it lighted 24/7 ? Can it pass a Coast Guard inspection for living quarters and is it powered(able to navigate to Coast Guard standards under its own power? Is it certified sea worthy - standard safety equipment - horns - lights - fire equipment - life raft, etc.

The bill will get them all except the luxury ones that start at about $250,000.

[Swamp Rat]

I have no problem with the well-built ones that have contained septic systems. But they should all be well maintained, out of navigable channels, registered as watercraft with DNR, have all the safety equipment (and lights), and truly able to keep their crap contained.

[JABIII]

Plus make them have to stay in certain areas or harbors to keep them out of every hole and bend of the river and swamp...

[JABIII]

Posted on Tue, Jan. 23, 2007

S.C. river shacks draw flood of criticism
By JOEY HOLLEMAN
jholleman@thestate.com

Imagine ratty shacks scattered on the sand of South Carolina’s beaches.

What if the owners anchored these structures on the sand, treating the beach as their property?

Consider the outrage if those shacks had toilets that flowed directly into the dunes.

Of course, state regulators never would let that happen. But that’s exactly what’s happening to some of the state’s rivers and lakes. Makeshift houseboats, commonly called river shacks, are cropping up everywhere.

An occasional blight on the waterways 20 years ago, the number of ramshackle fishing and drinking structures has exploded. A survey by the S.C. Coastal Conservation League counted 135 on nine rivers, mostly in the Lowcountry, and Lake Marion.

State regulators say current law makes it difficult to force the removal of river shacks, but that could change this year. Rep. David Umphlett, R-Berkeley, plans to introduce legislation that could flush these eyesores out of the waterways.

“We are finding them on rivers where there were none last year,” said Patrick Moore, project manager with Coastal Conservation League and American Rivers. “Unless we handle this now, what has been predominantly a Lowcountry problem will snowball into a statewide blight.”

River advocates are astounded at the audacity of people who park these floating shacks on bends in rivers for years at a time. The state’s navigable waters, like the beaches, belong to the state.

For decades, the occasional shack popped up, usually in out-of-the-way lake coves or turns in the rivers. Barry Beasley, director of habitat protection programs for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, recalled seeing four or five shacks on a 78-mile portion of the Little Pee River designated as a State Scenic River in the 1980s and 1990s.

“There were just a handful there; one had sunk in a little slough,” Beasley said. “All of a sudden in the past four or five years, they’ve started to mushroom.”

A survey by DNR in 2001 found 24 shacks in that segment. Last year’s survey counted 34.

The standard shack base is a wooden deck floating on a bed of 55-gallon drums. The enclosures often resemble the large tool sheds sold at hardware stores. In some cases, old camper shells are plopped on the bases.

Authorities say there’s little they can do about these structures under current law. The S.C. Department of Natural Resources can require a boating permit, but about half of these structures have permits. The others could get them with little trouble.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control enforce regulations that outlaw permanent structures impeding navigation on the rivers. But except in the cases of a few shacks bolted to trees, the owners could simply untie their structures and float down the river, claiming each site is temporary.

DHEC also could enforce sewage regulations. Most of the shacks have sinks and toilets that flow directly into the water, which is against the law. But no river shack owners have been fined, in part because making a case requires catching them in the act, said Rheta Geddings, assistant chief of DHEC’s Bureau of Water.

“It’s difficult to prove,” Geddings said. “You have to be able to prove where it came from.”

So for years, authorities basically hoped the shacks would go away. Instead, the lack of oversight encouraged the building of more, and more intricate, shacks.

“The more they’re are out there, the more legal they seem,” Moore said.

Many have gas generators. Some have satellite TV dishes and window air conditioners.

The shacks are pervasive on the Waccamaw and Little Pee Dee rivers and on lakes Marion and Moultrie. The Coastal Conservation League survey found one on the Wateree River and two on the Congaree River.

Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility that operates lakes Marion and Moultrie, put together a video detailing the problem several years ago, hoping to persuade legislators to make changes. The utility updated the tape recently with images of abandoned shacks sinking in the Low Falls Landing area.

Santee Cooper estimates there are 100 non-navigable structures on the lakes, said utility spokeswoman Laura Varn. In addition to being environmental and navigation hazards, the shacks “really constitute an eyesore,” she said.

Santee Cooper would back a bill that gives regulation teeth. “We want any help we can get in clearing up this issue,” Varn said.

A recent boat trip to the northern reaches of Lake Marion convinced Umphlett something had to be done. A few decrepit shacks were sinking. Others were moored by steel cables to cypress trees.

“You go through there in a boat at night — it would be dangerous,” Umphlett said. “Plus, it’s taking away from the beauty of the lake.”

Shacks aren’t as much a concern on Lake Murray and the Corps of Engineers-managed lakes on the Savannah River, which have more restrictive regulations requiring all houseboats be kept in marinas.

Umphlett’s bill would outlaw the non-navigable structures but give owners five years to get them off the water. The construction or use of new shacks would be a misdemeanor punishable with a $1,000 fine.

Rep. Liston Barfield, R-Horry, plans to fight the bill in the House. “I don’t own one, but I do use them. If you’re down there on the river and a storm comes up and you need (shelter), you better pray there’s one around. It could literally save your life.”

Barfield scoffed at the pollution concerns, saying the people in the shacks are doing what anyone in a motorboat does. “The people who own those things go down there just three or four or five nights a year, usually around Thanksgiving,” he said.

Though Barfield doesn’t think the shacks should be outlawed, he suspects their days are numbered. He has told acquaintances who own the shacks they should consider selling them.

Georgia had a similar shack problem in the early 1990s, when a state survey counted 218, mostly on the Altamaha River. Tighter regulations in 1992 outlawed river houses on navigable water. All that remain are a handful in a stagnant oxbow lake just off the Altamaha, said Lt. Col. Homer Bryson of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

“There was one on the Savannah (River). When we outlawed them, they just moved it to the South Carolina side.”

Reach Holleman at (803) 771-8366.

[JABIII]

Posted on Tue, Jan. 23, 2007

HARD TO STOP

Regulators say it’s difficult to get rid of river shacks under current laws.

Boating: Laws require all boats be registered with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, but they don’t require marine toilets.

Obstructing navigable waters: Laws ban the blocking of rivers and streams, but most river shacks can untether their lines and float downstream to bypass these rules.

Sewage: It’s illegal to have sinks and toilets that flow directly into rivers and lakes, but linking pollution found in water with a specific shack is difficult without catching the perpetrator in the act.

SHACK CENSUS

Counts of houseboats by the S.C. Coastal Conservation League last year:

Lake Marion — 62

Little Pee Dee River — 34

Waccamaw River — 18

Savannah River — 10

Pee Dee River — 4

Congaree River — 2

Edisto River — 2

Sandy Island — 2

Wateree River — 1

[BOGSTER]

I agree.
Make them located in a certain area, so they aren't scattered all over the swamp.

[SCTIMBER]

What, none on Lake Murray?

[Wood Duck]

By the way, ducks crap in the water, deer crap in the woods........

[skybuster]

Originally posted by Wood Duck:
By the way, ducks crap in the water, deer crap in the woods........

Mind if I come take a dump on your kitchen table?

[DUCKMAN]

What is right?

People have a house in the mountains or a house on the lake or a house at the beach or a house in the country. The house has to meet building codes. Must have an acceptable, approved potable water supply. Must have an acceptable septic system or hook up. They must pay property taxes.

How can these people have these floating outhouses on public property and have no liabilities and answer to no one?

How is this right?

[Naked Ape]

FLoating toilets they should be either kept in a marina or be manned at all times.

[DUCKMAN]

Think I will go up to Table Rock State Park and build me a House - toilet on drums - boat!

Maybe just off the Battery out from the park in Charleston!

Maybe Lake Murray and attach it to one of those towers!

Maybe do all 3 - rent um out! Make me some tax free money and pay nobody nothing! When they get holes in the drums ....just walk off!

It is my right! (according to some!!!!) LMAO

[JABIII]

That is actually not a bad idea Duckman! You could get $500 a week no sweat marketing the "Broadwater Experience" or the "Santee Sunrise Package" to yankees and hippies on Craig's List or http://houseboat-rentals.gordonsguide.com/

You are on to something old boy...

Jocassee
Keowee
Santee
Capers
Murray
Wateree

[Sneaks]

Originally posted by DUCKMAN:


Maybe just off the Battery out from the park in Charleston!

Maybe do all 3 - rent um out! Make me some tax free money and pay nobody nothing! When they get holes in the drums ....just walk off!

It is my right! (according to some!!!!) LMAO

Come on down to Charleston and look about a quarter of a mile up the Ashley from the battery. There are 50 of them and they're called old shltty blowboats. A lot of them are sunk too and you don't see anyone climbing all over those assholes to get em out of there.

A couple of floating sheds in the middle of the swamp doesn't hold a candle to dozens of sunken sailboats in the harbor littering the "Holy City".

[Wood Duck]

All i am saying is that there is no need to get rid of them. Regulations? yes a must and i meet all of them that i know and have been told about by DNR. Sinking, eyesores have to be delt with, i agree. For those of us who are currently doing the best we can to keep ours in a reasonable manner dont deserve to be just told to get out. It is no worse than the perminant campsite shelters that you see up and down the river. Regulations- Yes, removal- i say no