Charleston has completed an approximately $198 million drainage project whose pump station can move 360,000 gallons of water per minute into the Ashley River. The payoff residents will be watching for is less time with water sitting on streets around the Crosstown.
City leaders marked completion of the U.S. 17 Spring/Fishburne Drainage Improvement Project on November 9, Live 5 News reported that evening. The William Dudley Gregorie Pump Station is the visible part of a much larger system beneath the peninsula.
Where the water goes
A city press release published by Holy City Sinner on November 6 identifies the station at 135 Lockwood Drive. The five-phase project includes more than 9,000 feet of deep tunnels and more than 18,000 feet of new stormwater pipes. Together, those components collect water in the Spring and Fishburne drainage basins and move it toward the river.
The city says the system can discharge water even during king tides. That matters because the project is intended to reduce the frequency, duration and severity of storm-related flooding along Septima P. Clark Parkway (the Crosstown) and the surrounding basins. The new station is part of that connected system, not a stand-alone fix for every flooded street.
Project officials told Live 5 the service area covers nearly 550 acres, about one-fifth of the peninsula. The improvements also reach the Ehrhardt Street portion of the medical district.
What completion means
Officials explicitly warned that flooding will still occur. The expected improvement is water draining more quickly, with reduced depth and duration. Drivers and nearby residents should judge performance by those limits rather than expecting the completion ceremony to mark the end of Charleston’s flooding problem.
A project measured in decades
In its June reporting on the work, Live 5 traced preliminary funding to 1999 and the start of construction to 2011. Planning, design and permitting preceded the construction phases.
That earlier account described shafts extending as much as 150 feet underground and an outfall carrying water from the pump station into the Ashley River. November’s completion is the new development in a story many residents have watched unfold for years.
Find more infrastructure and neighborhood news in our Charleston coverage.
Image credit: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. May 1, 2017 aerial file view of Charleston, not the pump station or a current flood. Resized.
