HELP STOP an Ecological Disaster in Edgefield County

PLEASE HELP STOP an Ecological Ticking Time Bomb Disaster! Funds are needed for "Horse Creek Nature Preserve" to stop project and convert land to a permanent nature preserve.

Issue - A hilly wooded and secluded residential neighborhood near Trenton SC is in imminent danger of destruction. A land developer has submitted a proposal to Edgefield County to build a 70-spot RV park on a 17-acre virgin forest plot on the side of a 80 foot hill located at the corner of Bream Oak and US-25. On this property, we’ve seen bear, deer, bobcat, wild turkeys, endangered woodpeckers and bats, This hill is the source of three perennial streams that feed all (~30) of the Horse Creek interconnected ponds and streams going downhill feeding Aiken’s historic Langley Pond and flowing into the Savannah River. All residents oppose this RV plan but are getting little help from county officials, even though it breaks many of the fundamental tenets of the county’s Comprehensive Plan and the SC Pollution Control Act.

Pollution – The developer, Blackston Custom Homes, plans to clear-cut the forest, install 70 concrete RV pads, 23 septic tanks with electric pumps to force toxic RV black water sewage 80’ uphill into a 2-acre leach field at the top of the hill behind a 100+ yr old historic home on US-25. They plan to populate the RVs with construction workers from the META Data Center building site in nearby Graniteville, SC. RV black water septic systems are drastically more poisonous than residential ones. RV septic systems not only have much higher concentrations of E-coli and heavy metals, but also, they use very caustic toxic chemicals e.g. naphthalene, calcium nitrate and formaldehyde, a carcinogen that causes vomiting, bronchial spasms, arrythmia, pulmonary edema, severe systemic toxicity, metabolic acidosis, tissue and organ damage and necrosis, coma and death. There is no antidote for formaldehyde. It is toxic when touched, swallowed or breathed. Managing RV wastewater is NOT a job for the untrained. Sooner or later all mechanical devices fail and accidents happen. A power outage or mechanical failure will disable the septic pumps and gravity will cause the sewage to flow back downhill into the RVs. In addition, RV owners are not required to undergo training, RVs are well known to leak, sewage hoses are fragile and accidental black water spills happen. So accumulative spills will happen and containment on the side of a hill is severely limited. If any of those occur, toxic sewage waste will enter the seven neighborhood environment. Even if there is no spill and no tanks or pumps fail or leak, the one sure component of a septic system is gravity, which means that eventually, the leach field and surface toxic waste will end up in our streams, ponds and ground water--most of the residents here use well water! If they have to move, WHO will buy a house with toxic well water?

Storm water erosion – Clear-cutting, installation of RV pads, roads, septic tanks, fence post, office building, etc., will drastically increase the amount of storm water run-off which flows today from the side of that hill into our streams ponds, and likely breach and erode a main earthen dam which is the first to receive the erosion.

End goal and need for donations: Our end goal is to: 1. Stop the development, then 2.Convince the land owner to permanently convert this property as a South Carolina nature preserve or sale it to the seven neighborhoods of Horse Creek Nature Preserve so they can convert as a permanent nature preserve. One hundred percent of the donations from this GoFundMe will go to Horse Creek Nature Preserve which is a SC recognized nonprofit organization. Donations will be used for lawyer expenses and land purchase. We have our state certification as a nonprofit and our EIN from federal. We a awaiting IRS cert as a recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

News article from 28 July: https://www.postandcourier.com/northaugusta/government/county-rejects-developers-plans-trenton-bream-oak-rv-park/article_df92d2ec-553c-41f1-a484-5e39d6406232.html?utm_source=%2Fnasocial&utm_term=north-augusta&tpcc=north_augusta_facebook_organic&utm_medium=Social&fbclid=IwQ0xDSwL0KIhleHRuA2FlbQExAAEey9xSj3TWLju_pj3xJEabGCqzHLc4O-6gMXMpZRaavkRDPp-gmzpqLvjm0SY_aem_tkBKwVmY05oFh5-SCmaW7g#h1ytqxlj1hwo4d9oby8ophqadr5gzaekg

Another News clip from 29 July: https://www.wrdw.com/video/2025/07/30/savannah-riverkeeper-joins-fight-against-rv-park-edgefield/