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Riverkeeper Appeals Gills Creek Scrap Yard Decision
Apr 30, 2021
Earlier this week, Congaree Riverkeeper and the Gills Creek Watershed Association, represented by the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, appealed in circuit court a recent decision by the City of Columbia Board of Zoning Appeals to allow an auto scrap yard to operate at 2420 Shop Road, just a few hundred feet away from Gills Creek.
Click to view a copy of the appeal
in January Congaree Riverkeeper began to receive complaints about a scrap yard operating illegally at this site. In March we submitted a letter to the Board of Zoning Appeals opposing the zoning special exception to operate a scrap yard. The company, American Scrap Iron and Metal, also has a history of environmental violations and numerous fires at their other scrap yard facilities in the Midlands.
We brought this appeal because the operation of a scrap yard at this site has the potential to harm Gills Creek, adjacent properties, and the surrounding community, and the Board of Zoning Appeals made an error and failed to follow the required criteria in their decision to allow it.
The City of Columbia has also appealed the zoning special exception.
