Collaboration is essential to protecting SC’s water future

South Carolina’s water resources have always helped define who we are as a state. Our rivers, lakes, wetlands and coastal systems support the places we call home, the industries that drive our economy, the farms that feed our communities and the outdoor spaces that shape our quality of life.

As South Carolina continues to experience record-breaking economic and population growth, and an ongoing drought, the value of our water resources has never been clearer. Growth brings opportunity, investment and jobs — and it also brings increased demand on the natural resources that sustain and enable it.

Ensuring long-term water availability is more than an environmental priority; it’s an economic necessity.

That’s why the recent completion of the 2025 South Carolina State Water Plan is a vital step forward.

In 2024, Gov. Henry McMaster established WaterSC as a proactive measure to bring key stakeholders together to rally around sustainable water use.

In 2025, the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services gathered input from stakeholders and the public, to complete the State Water Plan to guide the protection of water availability in South Carolina for the next 50 years.

The plan is designed to be a living document that can evolve as new data, technology, conditions and stakeholder needs emerge. This is important because planning alone will not protect South Carolina’s water future.

The real measure of success will be whether we can move from planning to aligned, actionable progress.

The state’s environmental agency took a major step towards action on May 19 at their Water Summit in Columbia, which convened stakeholders across the state to start collaborating on the plan’s implementation.

The key themes from the summit echoed similar input Sustain SC members provided after a March workshop focused on reviewing the plan and identifying opportunities to strengthen it.

During this Sustain SC workshop in early spring, over 20 Sustain SC member organizations in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Services convened to review the 2025 State Water Plan.

After engaging in facilitated discussion, five recommendations were shared with the agency for consideration.

First, Sustain SC members recommended expanding water quality protection and risk reduction within the plan. Members agree that water quality should be treated as a central planning driver to protect public health, ecosystems and downstream users.

Second, members recommended expanding and refining data and modeling analysis. As development patterns shift and demand grows, members say the plan should more fully account for land-use change, land-cover change and emerging large-load users. They also recommended a gap analysis between permitted and actual water use to better estimate current availability and inform future modeling updates.

Third, members encouraged the agency to clarify and refine water-user priorities within the plan. Clearer explanations of who uses water, under what authority and with what obligations can improve transparency, accountability and shared understanding. This includes clearer discussion of grandfathered users, permit holders and registrants.

Fourth, members recommended integrating and expanding water reuse. They agree that reuse-ready planning, incentives, standards for reclaimed water and utility-industry effluent reuse partnerships can help reduce withdrawals and consumption while maintaining reliability for communities, agriculture and industry.

Finally, because the State Water Plan is a living document, members advised clarifying public participation and ongoing communication around implementation. They also suggested adding plain-language explanations about modeling and providing regular implementation updates to sustain momentum and broaden participation.

Sustain SC is proud of this state-wide collaboration to ensure that stakeholders across sectors have a seat at the table.

Together, we are acting to protect our water resources that make South Carolina special and sustains our communities, recreation and economy.