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"They call it paradise
I don't know why
You call someplace paradise
Kiss it goodbye."
The Eagles, "The Last Resort"
Not many issues unite a surfer from Folly Beach with so many other people who occasionally get splashed by the Atlantic Ocean.
A saltwater fishing family from James Island.
A kayaking couple from Mount Pleasant.
Vacationing sand castle builders on the Isle of Palms.
Not many issues bring recreational sports enthusiasts together with those who prefer to enjoy their seascapes in deck shoes and from a nice distance.
Folks just seem to appreciate sweet views, unspoiled beachfront, clean water. Reasonably clean water, anyway.
The proposed development of Morris Island is a good example of a bad idea, bad enough to serve as a watershed Lowcountry environmental management argument.
Plan: Place 20 or so luxury homes on the northern portion of delightfully uninhabited Morris Island, so strategically located to Fort Sumter it was the site of a famous Civil War battle for Battery Wagner pitting the Union's African-American 54th Massachusetts Infantry against the Confederate defenders of Charleston and its harbor.
Reaction: Are you nuts?
IN-MARSH DIGS
Those who already have weighed in against the Morris Island Neighborhood Association include such strange bedfellows as Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. and the James Island Town Council, Civil War re-enactors and ecologists, historians and my neighbor Earl.
Riley calls any idea of Morris Island development "a travesty."
It's worse than that.
It is, as Woody Allen says so eloquently in the classic "Bananas" scene, "a travesty of a mockery of a sham."
You don't have to be an environmentalist wacko to see that if Morris Island falls to an army of bathtub installers, nothing is sacred.
If Del Morris Island Boca Vista springs up, what next?
A high rise addition in Phase II?
The Ashley River Road Oak Tree Removal Project -- don't worry, they'll be available in an online auction -- to allow for more strip malls, which will include art galleries featuring a limited supply of signed Ashley River Road oak tree prints?
The Sullivan's Island Marriott?
PENTHOUSE VIEW
We have heard for years all the variations of the "Lowcountry environmentalist" definition. For instance, the guy who just built a dock and doesn't want any more permits issued.
Smart planning looks ahead, behind and 360 degrees around the present.
Sound deer hunting policy bonds ecology with recreation. Morris Island development -- and the development tone it sets -- are enemies of both.
Surfers might have to dodge more flotsam in the future.
The fishing family better plan on heading for deeper water.
Kayakers can count on counting more cans in the ocean.
Sand castles are so much more interesting when sand is combined with non-organic construction material.
The view of all this should be excellent from a Morris Island penthouse.
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