If you ask any South Carolinian what their favorite place in the state is and what it means to them, be prepared for an earful. For some it’s an island with a wide, sandy beach they grew up visiting as a child—perhaps Edisto or Pawleys. For others it’s a stunning mountain vista, like the overlook at Caesars Head State Park, or a creek running alongside a favorite hiking trail.

For Charles Blackmon, that sacred place is the Little River—a quiet, dark stream meandering through banks lined with golden wildflowers and mature hardwood trees. The land surrounding parts of the river have been in his family since the 1760s, and it holds a special place in his heart. It’s also a safe haven for a wide range of species, including fish like brim and bass, hawks, owls and woodpeckers and dogwood and willow trees.

But the river where Blackmon spent hours wading and fishing as a young boy is under threat from concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. Fifty-seven industrial poultry barns, packing in hundreds of thousands of chickens, already overburden a four-mile stretch in his small community of Mountville in Laurens County. And now, the Department of Environmental Services has greenlighted sixteen new barns in the area, which would hold 528,000 broiler chickens and result in an additional annual litter production of 3,220 tons of manure.

The big problem? Polluted runoff from the massive amounts of waste generated from chicken farms is contaminating the river, which empties into the Saluda River and eventually flows into Lake Murray west of Columbia. The new barns would be perched on a slope above the river banks—dangerous siting that would seem an obvious recipe for disaster.

Levels of fecal coliform bacteria in the river are high enough to prompt an active Department of Environmental Services cleanup plan—yet, the same agency still approved the new barns. The river is no longer safe for new generations of children to wade, fish or catch frogs in—a loss of natural resources that Blackmon has been fighting to recover for over nine years.

Alongside neighbors in Mountville with similar worries and experiences, Blackmon formed an organization called South Carolinians for Responsible Agricultural Practices, or SCRAP.

SCELP has been helping SCRAP fight the new barns in court. Last July, we filed a challenge to the permits in the Administrative Law Court. Unfortunately, the Court granted the broiler companies’ request to dismiss our case at the end of 2024. But SCELP and our partners at SCRAP aren’t giving up. In February, we appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals and are currently researching and drafting our legal arguments to submit to the Court.

“I am continually impressed by the expertise and dedication of the attorneys that I have worked with within SCELP,” said Blackmon. “The dedication in the face of sometimes overwhelming opposition is inspiring to the members of our group who are contesting the threat to the Little River watershed.”