Environmental advocacy groups, made up of residents, have sent Georgetown County a letter of their intent to sue, alleging the county is not following clean water standards and creating devastating impacts to the area watershed.

The South Carolina Environmental Law Project is representing Preserve Murrells Inlet and Murrells Inlet Seafood in the case. SCELP Director Amy Armstrong says the county has a federal stormwater permit that they must follow to preserve clean water under the federal Clean Water Act requirements.

“Many of which are not being followed or clearly are being violated and those are things like ensuring you have adequate resources to manage the stormwater program, ensuring that you are conducting regular inspections, that you’re enforcing the permit requirements, that you’ve got stormwater controls that are designed to eliminate or minimize to the maximum extent practicable, the amount of pollutants running into our waters, and so there are all kinds of violations they all tie back to the central problem, which is water quality,” Armstrong says.