Aug. 09, 2007
Congaree National Park set to expand
Riverstone tract would make park’s ‘wow’ spots easier to reach
By JOEY HOLLEMAN - jholleman@thestate.com
Congaree National Park staffers Jon Torrance and Mike Reigle stand next to a cypress knee that measured more than 8 feet high. The 25-foot tape measure ran out before it encircled the cypress tree buttress. One of the knees growing from the massive tree’s roots towered over grown men. And the rotting stumps nearby are evidence larger trees were cut for timber sometime in the past century.
This one small patch of swamp by itself would make the Riverstone tract an important addition to Congaree National Park, and the 1,840-acre tract offers much more.
The Trust For Public Land is poised to announce it has an option to buy the tract for $5.6 million from Riverstone Properties, with the intention of selling the land to the National Park Service, said Chris Deming, a project manager for the trust.
The inclusion of the Riverstone tract would increase the park’s acreage to nearly 26,500. Combined with neighboring Manchester State Forest and wetlands protected by Santee Cooper in the Upper Santee Swamp, it would give wildlife an open corridor along nearly 30 miles of rivers.
Congress approved the inclusion of the property in the park boundary in 2003, and the state’s congressional delegation is working to include funds for the purchase in the Department of the Interior budget.
In recent years, the property has been managed for timber and used by a hunt club. Wildlife advocates pushed for the expansion to link the park’s longtime core property along the Congaree River with the Wateree River and the Upper Santee Swamp.
The new tract also could open new doors, literally, to the park. Busy U.S. 601 cuts through the property, and a system of dirt roads leads from the highway to the Congaree River.
Park superintendent Tracy Swartout is excited about the possibilities — from canoe trails to biking on the roads to maybe even driving to the river’s edge.
“It could be appealing to a wider range of visitors,” Swartout said. “We could get the message of the park out to more people.”
That message centers around the importance of the bottomland hardwood forests that once covered most Southern river flood plains before farming and logging wiped them out. The park represents the largest remaining flood plain forest.
About 140,000 visitors per year find the park off lightly traveled Old Bluff Road, about 20 miles south of Columbia. The hike to the river from the visitors center is a 10-mile round trip. The largest cypress trees are in portions of the park far from marked trails.
Because most of the current park is designated as a wilderness area, motorized vehicles and bikes aren’t allowed. If the new section isn’t designated as wilderness, it could be open to different uses.
The huge cypress examined Wednesday, known as General Lee, stands a stone’s throw from the property’s main access road. It would be a spectacular teaching tool, Swartout said. She envisions a short boardwalk with an overlook a few feet from the tree and the logged stumps nearby.
Park staffers measured the tree on a tour of the property with Trust for Public Land officials. The buttress was 27 feet, 3 inches at chest height, slightly smaller than the largest cypress in the park but much larger than any others so easy to reach. One of its knees measured taller than eight feet.
Visitors might park near U.S. 601 and hike or bike the dirt road to the tree overlook, or the park service could open the road to traffic all the way to the river, where a small bluff provides a view of an expansive sandbar on the far bank.
Another road runs near a suspected Native American mound. The system of creeks and lakes running along the northeastern edge of the property could be a canoe trail during wet periods. And the section south of U.S. 601 includes much of the inside curve of Bates Old River, an oxbow lake created by a shift in the river channel in the 1800s.
Reach Holleman at (803) 771-8366.
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