In a series of cases, several Administrative Law Judges have issued decisions holding that persons who use an effected resource lack standing to challenge permits that impact those resources. SCELP is pursuing appeals of two of those cases, hoping to get favorable rulings from the Supreme Court correcting the ALJ's ideas of standing.

In the first case, Jim Smiley v. DHEC, our client walks the beach at the Isle of Palms and is challenging a permit that allows sand to be scraped from the public beach and placed to protect private structures.

In the second case, a local group of citizens has challenged two community docks that would extend very far out into the Wando River, and would be constructed right on top of a highly productive crabbing spot. The docks would cut off these individuals´ access to the river, and would eliminate commercial and recreational crabbing from this area. Even though this group of citizens includes a commercial fisherman who harvests shellfish from this very spot, along with grandparents and parents who take their children paddling and boating in the small tributaries that would be blocked by the docks, the Administrative Law Judge ruled that these citizens did not have standing.

Despite Smiley's use of the beach and the damage to his use that the project would cause, his appeal was dismissed for lack of standing. We have appealed to Circuit Court and the Court of Appeals, but have lost.

In our second case, SCELP has stepped in to defend the rights of these citizens to challenge an environmental permitting decision that would result in a loss of their use of the Wando River. We have appealed to the Coastal Zone Management Panel and Circuit Court, both of which affirmed the decision of the Administrative Law Court.

We asked the S. C. Supreme Court to hear both of these cases because of the significant public interest in protecting citizens' rights to challenge environmental permits. If we are unsuccessful in winning reversals, these cases could lead to severe limitations on our clients' ability to appeal future cases.

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