Granite Countertops in Summers Corner, SC

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) - People living in the Summers Corner development are reaching out to representatives and federal post office officials for help with persistent mail delivery issues.

Packages delivered a few days late or a letter arriving a few houses down aren’t the only problems plaguing those who live in the Summers Corner development.

Christy Hurley has lived in Summers Corner since 2022. She says she understands a few weeks of understaffing and a misplaced item occasionally, but her service has been inconsistent for a year.

“We started noticing certain things missing such as debit cards, credit cards, we would have to call those companies and say can you just send a new one? That’s when I started to get nervous because that’s personal information,” Hurley says.

Talking with neighbors, a few people thought it seemed like a community-wide issue. Damone Walsh is one of the residents who helped create a tracking system to get a sense of what is going on.

Over a 90-day period, people living in Summers Corner contributed to a neighborhood-wide spreadsheet tracking mail mishaps. They range from missing tax documents and cards with money, to empty packages left in mailboxes. Their recordings found about 100 issues.

“Frankly, we were surprised. I mean over just during that 90 days, 78 days of actual mail service, at least one to two people were having mail problems every day, every single day and just in our community,” Walsh says.

The spreadsheet creators believe their numbers may be underreported as well. The neighbors sent letters to South Carolina representatives Graham, Scott, Mace and Clyburn, as well as the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Inspector General.

“It just makes us think that there’s something systemic as opposed to individual problems. I mean, it may be both, but ultimately, I mean, let’s, let’s get it fixed,” Walsh says.

Walsh and Hurley say the postal service will often respond to an individual complaint, citing they are understaffed, or contractors are doing the deliveries.

“Everybody expected and was willing to accept if it’s a couple days off, well, that just makes sense. There’s a lag between whenever they scan it and whenever they deliver it, but then it went on for days, weeks and then just never just never delivered,” Walsh says.

Hurley says she’s gotten to the point that she doesn’t trust the service when it comes to important deliveries.

“We just sent out notices for my college daughter’s graduation and I had to inform all of our family. I said, Look, we’re having so many issues, I would prefer you not send money, gift cards, anything like that in the mail,” she says. “We got a graduation announcement for my sister and the back was torn open. And I said this is getting a little crazy.”

Walsh says the group decided to reach out to their representatives because USPS is a federal service, they need help getting answers from.

“We have a right to expect mail service. It’s embodied in our in our laws. And several people have reached out to the Postal Inspector and the postmaster and complained repeatedly and got nothing, just no result,” Walsh says.

Representative Nancy Mace’s office provided the following response to the community letter:

We’ve gotten a few inquires about this post office and have talked with our postal contact in Columbia. Their response has been that a lot of post offices, including this one, are experiencing staffing shortages and significant slowdowns. They are looking into it though so I’ll add in your inquiry to the others we’ve sent – will help us build the investigative case against them so the PS will have evidence to help find solutions to the issues.

Senator Lindsay Graham’s office also responded asking for more information from Walsh, who submitted the letter.

“We all recognize and believe that most of the Postal Service employees, they just want to do a good job, but it just makes us think that there’s something systemic as opposed to individual problems. I mean, it may be both, but ultimately, let’s get it fixed,” Walsh says. “I think consistent delivery, and I think a component would also be responsiveness from the leadership from within the Postal Service is what we’re looking for.”

The United States Postal Service provided the following statement:

The Postal Service strives is working hard to provide the best possible service to our valued customers. We apologize for any mail services issues that may have been experienced by customers living in the Summer’s Corner community. Some of the proactive steps we’ve taken in Summerville, SC include hiring additional personnel, as well as making staffing adjustments. Local management at the Oakbrook Post Office will continue to work with customers in Summer’s Corner to ensure every effort is being made to meet or exceed their expectations. We urge any customers with concerns or questions about their mail delivery service to contact the Postal Service immediately so that we can look into and resolve those concerns promptly. Customers have a variety of options for contacting the Postal Service, including contacting their local Post Office, calling 1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777), or visiting our website.

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No fewer than 12 new grocery stores are in the works across the Lowcountry, including plans to tear down and replace one store on site and relocate two others.

Around Charleston, the population boom — now expanding at an average net daily rate of 36 residents, according to the latest update — keeps fueling competition among supermarket chains that are angling to be as close as possible to the proliferating housing enclaves that keep their cash registers ringing.

That's about 13,300 new residents each year spread across Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties, with many of the newcomers settling on the fringes of the growing region, especially in large-scale developments in Goose Creek, Moncks Corner and Summerville.

The three counties saw a 20 percent population surge over the past decade to a combined 830,000 residents, according to the Charleston Regional Development Alliance.

Competing grocery chains closely analyze the numbers to decide where to set up shop.

By one measure, a general rule for a full-service supermarket of 40,000 square feet or more to be viable is to have 10,000 residents, or about 4,000 rooftops, within a 20-mile radius. If there's competition in the market, the required number of residents is higher and vice versa for an area with no rivals.

Berkeley bound

Near Summerville, North Carolina-based Harris Teeter and competitor Publix of Florida are building stores on Nexton Parkway, across the street from one another, to serve the developing 5,000-acre Nexton community, eventually home to nearly 19,000 residents.

Both are set to be completed this year in the Berkeley County development, with Harris Teeter set to open in the spring and Publix likely welcoming customers by mid-year, according to Nexton spokeswoman Cassie Cataline.

On the opposite side of Nexton, Lowes Foods of North Carolina plans to build a new supermarket on North Creek Drive, across the street from the Cane Bay development.

It will anchor a retail center on the corner near fast-food restaurant McDonald's. Look for an opening possibly in 2025, according to property owner and Charleston businessman Eddie Buck.

A little farther to the east, Publix also plans to anchor a corner shopping center at U.S. Highways 176 and 17A in Carnes Crossroads, a 2,300-acre mixed-use housing development that could accommodate about 11,000 residents at full buildout. Like Lowes Foods, it is expected to open in 2025, according to a Publix spokesman.

Cartload of competition

Southwest of Summerville, another Publix could begin construction in 2025, based on bidding documents last fall that show a 51,454-square-foot store slated for a 10-acre site on Beech Hill Road, across from the planned 8,000-home Summers Corner community.

The 7,200-acre mixed-use community with schools and shops has about 1,200 homes sold and another 250 under construction, according to Jason Byham, division president at Lennar, the homebuilder that bought the tract for more than $26 million in 2018.

In Mount Pleasant, three new grocery stores are in the works.

The Fresh Market of North Carolina plans to take over the 26,000-square-foot site discount grocer Lidl abandoned before moving in at Bowman Place Shopping Center at Bowman Road and Johnnie Dodds Boulevard.

DD2 Board of Trustees Chair Dr. Ashley Wimberly told the crowd that growth is good but has presented some challenges.

“The definition of growth is the process of increasing in size or development. Some synonyms are advancement, expansion, gain and improvement, all words that bring a positive connotation,” she said. “And yet the issue of growth for us is certainly a difficult one. It is creating some challenges and anxiety about how we will manage the consequences.”

Wimberly said there is some fear surrounding the funding for the changes needed to accommodate the growth DD2 is experiencing. Still, she urged people to also look at the good that comes with growth and the idea that physical growth, just as personal growth, can lead to remarkable things.

“Research shows we often judge normal human experiences that come with growth, like nervousness, stress and discomfort, too harshly,” she said. “While our inclination might be to avoid them, we can become better people and live a richer life if we embrace them. The physical growth we’re facing comes with challenges, just as any other type of growth does. Navigating it will require effort, determination and the willingness to step out of our comfort zones. It may also involve facing setbacks, making mistakes and experiencing temporary failures. But it is through these challenges that we grow the most; as the saying goes, in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

DD2 Superintendent Dr. Shane Robbins said managing the district’s growth has been, is and will be difficult. He said Sand Hill Elementary and Beech Hill Elementary are at 125% capacity because of the new housing construction in those areas.

“In Dorchester County alone, over a 10-year forecast, over 10,000 (housing) units are on the books to be built,” Robbins said. “Now, lots of things can happen that could change that forecast. But what I’m seeing from the state level is that South Carolina is the No. 1 fastest-growing state in the United States right now, and the Lowcountry is the fastest-growing area in South Carolina.”

Robbins discussed four ways to address enrollment growth, from the fastest and least expensive to the longest and most costly: rezoning, learning cottages, brick-and-mortar classroom additions and new construction.

“The first three options, we need to do most of that internally with our own budget to some degree,” Robbins said. “The fourth option must be voter-approved as a referendum.”

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The rezoning option involves moving areas where children go to a school that is at or over capacity to a school that is not at or over capacity.

“This may increase drive times for some people,” Robbins said. “Because of the way Dorchester County is developed, it could actually mean shorter drive times for some people. But rezoning is our first option, and it has no costs.”

The second option is installing learning cottages.

“I say learning cottages, and that’s just a fancy word for trailers,” Robbins said. That option takes about 12 to 18 months because the cottages have to be ADA-compliant, and we have to run utilities to them.

The third option, brick-and-mortar additions onto existing buildings, could take up to 24 months and is more expensive than adding the learning cottages. The fourth option, new construction, could take up to 36 months, depending on the design and permitting processes and whether land is available.

“New construction is something we cannot do as a district. We cannot afford that, and we do not have the revenue for that,” Robbins said. “This one requires a referendum by the voters. There is no state funding for school districts in South Carolina other than for those that are consolidating.”

The option for DD2 is the district’s 8% tax rate authority, meaning the tax rate of 8% can be raised at any time without approval request to maintain buildings. Robbins said the money can also be used for technology or infrastructure upgrades.

“We maintain more than 30 buildings in the district,” Robbins said, including 25 school buildings, the district office, the transportation depot, the community learning center, and the alternative school.

Robbins said the district has access to a couple of small tax-increment financing (TIF) funds, but a referendum may be the best way to get funding.

“We haven’t had a major referendum in Dorchester District Two for 12 years,” Robbins said. “That is why we are in a very good position to possibly ask the voters for that and to help us with our growth issues.”

SUMMERVILLE — Some of the youngest birders here have joined forces to monitor and populate bluebirds, a species that faced concerns of extinction nearly five decades ago.

They all live in the Summers Corner neighborhood off S.C. Highway 61, a fairly new community where bluebirds were the first inhabitants.

Nine years ago, when the community was under construction, a bluebird box was installed on the front street. The wooden boxes function much like the cavities the species creates in dead trees. Entrance holes allow them to move inside for shelter and nesting.

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When the first box was put up in Summers Corner, only a building and four home structures were on the property. Three days after the box was installed, the birds moved in, said Tracy Erwin, the community's marketing specialist.

More than 41 neighborhood children who make up the Bluebird Brigade will monitor that box and more than 20 others starting next week.

They'll venture out into the area to take inventory of the species and clean out the wooden boxes the bluebirds call home.

Rhonda Plummer leads the Bluebird Brigade, which was started by the Summers Corner Garden Club in March 2021. The group started with 15 children and nearly tripled in three years. Birders range from 3 to 13 years old.

Plummer said the group was started to help populate the birds and provide an opportunity for children to experience the hands-on process.

The children convened at the front of the neighborhood on Feb. 25 to learn basic facts about bluebirds, how to clean and prepare the boxes and make feeders for the birds using coffee filters and cereal.

Jim Sproull, a board member for the S.C. Bluebird Society, spoke to the birders about the importance of recording data about the species and answered a multitude of questions, including those about egg colors, how to get the birds to leave the boxes and what to do when the eggs don't hatch.

This task will be a new one for several members of the 2023 Bluebird Brigade cohort. Six-year-old Greyson Rose-Meadows is one of the newbies.

“My concern, and the concern of people on the island, is that River Road is getting more and more crowded," Charleston City Councilman Jim McBride said at an April 22 Committee on Public Works and Utilities meeting.

"It’s a two-lane road, with not a lot of shoulders, which contributed to the crash, I think.”

Leachate is created when water filters through a landfill, and picks up all kinds of chemical and organic pollutants along the way. It's like filtering water through coffee grounds to make your morning brew — just replace the beans with garbage.

The utility's spokesperson, Mike Saia, told city leaders in April that there are many reasons the system sends leachate to the processing plant on Johns Island, located at the intersection of River and Murraywood roads.

That includes a "symbiotic relationship" with the Oakridge Landfill in Dorchester County, where the truck that crashed in February was coming from. Oakridge takes Charleston's solids, and CWS takes Oakridge's liquids.

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The system can't send the leachate directly to its central Plum Island facility, as the highly-concentrated wastewater can "wreak havoc" on that plant's infrastructure if it arrives untreated. The Johns Island plant was also built large enough to handle a population boom, so its upper capacity hasn't been reached.

Perhaps most importantly, Saia said processing the so-called "garbage juice" above Charleston's watershed would be risky.

“It is a tremendous benefit to the entire Lowcountry that we treat this leachate and then release the water into the harbor, versus above us where our drinking water comes from,” he said.

Each truck can carry between 4,000 and 6,000 gallons of leachate. Saia said it's unclear how much was on the truck when it crashed, but "most of it was spilled." Clean-up took a few hours and the scene was "fully remediated." Saia said the truck was operated by a subcontractor hired by the Oakridge Landfill, which was responsible for the managing the cleanup.

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In response to the February spill, and feedback from the community, Saia said the utility is adding more pavement on the turn-out from the site onto River Road to give trucks more room to safely maneuver. But any improvements to the narrow road beyond that might be tricky.

River Road, like many roads across the state, is managed by the South Carolina Department of Transportation, not a local government. In an emailed statement, a department spokesperson wrote that the SCDOT "does not currently have any plans" for updating or widening the two-lane road.

"However, we encourage anyone with issues on a state-maintained roadway to be in touch with us directly at 855-467-2368," the spokesperson wrote.

Toxic versus hazardous

Technically, "toxic" is not the same thing as "hazardous."

"The toxicity of a substance is the potential of that substance to cause harm, and is only one factor in determining whether a hazard exists," according to Purdue University. "The hazard of a chemical is the practical likelihood that the chemical will cause harm."

Saia said the wastewater that spilled forth from the February accident was toxic, but not hazardous since the landfill it was from doesn't accept hazardous waste.

“People ask us what’s in it. We don’t know what’s in every drop, because we don’t know what people send to the landfill," he said. "But we do know that it meets industry standards and that it’s a high-strength wastewater.”

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Andrew Wunderley, executive director of Charleston Waterkeeper, said leachate is a significant environmental threat.

"It's a cocktail of toxic substances," he said. "It can be anything from heavy metals to solvents to herbicides to pesticides. It can be PFAS and forever chemicals. That being discharged into the environment is incredibly dangerous — not only to environmental health, but also to human health."

Saia said CWS will be discussing the spill, and potential solutions to prevent future accidents, with the Johns Island Council at a public meeting on July 11.

Each Friday, the Rising Waters newsletter offers insight into the latest environmental issues impacting the Lowcountry and the rest of the South.

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCIV) — A Summerville family says their $535,000 dream house has turned into a nightmare.

“This is what we wanted. We fell in love with the outside, the exterior, everything,” said Michael O’Hea, who moved into the house in the Summers Corner neighborhood in June of 2017. He says immediately after moving in, he and his wife noticed defects cropping up throughout the house.

“You see the cracks in the wall you see the cabinets coming off the wall,” Brandy O’Hea told ABC News 4.

Floors are also uneven in several parts of the home, and two cracks have formed on the both sides of the home’s exterior.

The O’Heas also described mold issues with the home and drainage problems that required the installation of a French drain.

Dan Ryan Builders constructed the home, which the O’Hea’s say is a "Keenleand II" plan.

ABC News 4 called and emailed Dan Ryan builders requesting an interview and asking if the home was being examined for structural issues. Dan Ryan’s regional president emailed the following:

“We are aware of the O’Hea’s concerns with respect to their house. We are in the process of scheduling an engineer to inspect the house and will take appropriate action thereafter.”

The O’Hea’s say Dan Ryan Building sent two structural engineers in the spring who performed a visual inspection of the home, but those engineers were no-shows at the next scheduled appointment.

“We’ve had no shows. Contractors showing up with no materials, no paint,” Michael O’Hea said. “We had seven different personnel but it’s past that now.”

The O’Heas said several of their neighbors are experiencing similar issues with the Keeneland II model. Representatives from Dan Ryan have not yet commented on that.

As it stands, the O’Heas simply want their little slice of suburbia back in one piece.

“I want my home,” Brandy O’Hea said. “I want the home we paid for. We put everything in this home.”

The Better Business Bureau’s website shows 57 complaints filed against Dan Ryan Builders in the last three years, but it also rates the company an A+.

The BBB’s website lists some of the criteria for that score as pertaining to how quickly and appropriately the company has handled complaints.

Dan Ryan told us the building company scheduled its structural engineer to inspect their home less than two days after we contacted them for this story, but that engineer is scheduled for October.

The O’Heas say they’re considering a class action lawsuit.