278 Corridor News - Issue 1      February 26, 2023

The Route 278 Corridor Project is the largest, most expensive, and most impactful project in the History of Beaufort County. However, with Council meetings being long and complex, with many poorly illuminated parts, there is insufficient daylight shining on it. Hence, I will attempt in this Newsletter, to periodically cover some important items and events. Readers may not always agree with my words, but that is what Comments are for. Together with Comments, I hope that we will all become better educated. If I have made any errors, I will correct them in a following issue. S.M. Baer

At the February 21, 2023 meeting of Hilton Head Town Council, the following was noted:

-        Council approved a Resolution setting up a 5-person Independent Review Advisory Committee (IRAC) to guide the Town’s choice of consultant and implementation of an Independent Review of the project. The IRAC would consist of 1 member of Town Council,  1 professional engineer, 1 citizen member from the Stoney Community plus an alternate, and 2 Citizen members.

-        Citizens (including TWG) strongly objected to the Town’s use of the term ‘Review’ since that, and an included Draft Statement of Work (SOW) closely following the County version, are steering the Town’s $300,000 effort to be merely a Peer Review mimicking the County’s $200,000 plan. That County plan eliminates a proper analysis over the needed scope, as well as discovery of other possible options beyond SCDOT’s existing footprint. (See attached Map.) This would be a disaster, going against the desires of over 10,000 petition signers. It would create yet another time and money wasting SHAM review, deflecting the needed analysis and potentially better solutions, as the County did in 2020. To avoid confusion, Citizens prefer the use of the term ISAC Independent Study Advisory Committee. 

-        Citizens also warned the Town of two potential traps (Backdoor FONSI, Value Engineering) that the County and SCDOT may be setting. (See definitions below.) 

-        There was agreement from all that the project should move ahead as rapidly as possible. But Citizens noted that the needed data to avoid a launch of a Titanic-like project could have been available in 2020, had the County not deflected the needed study back then. Citizens offered once again to work closely and intensely with the Town in the next week to get the needed study started rapidly.

-        On a lighter and very accurate note, one Councilperson, in referring to Tourism, said that they liked Chocolate Ice Cream, but too much would make them ill.

Want to make difference? Please sign the free petition at  https://chng.it/gxXykZBv   The more names, we get, the more traction we have with Federal Authorities to get this project on the right track rapidly. 

Definitions:

Backdoor FONSI – A FONSI is a Finding of No Significant Impact granted as a result of an EA. (Environmental Assessment). A FONSI is an essential checkpoint before a project may begin. I define a Backdoor FONSI as the approval of a FONSI behind the scenes out of public view. Incredibly, this is permitted by the FHWA-SC (Federal Highway Authority - South Carolina) before it is made available to the public. There are strong indications that that is either going on now, or imminent. 

On 12/14/2022 Craig Winn, Corridor Project Manager wrote: “I apologize for the delay but I wanted to check with FHWA to determine if the modified EA or the additional information for the FONSI could be released prior to the final determination. With the FONSI and EA document being federal documents SCDOT has to defer to FHWA on the decision to release any information and FHWA has indicated the documents cannot be released as they would be pre-decisional.”

TWG - A citizen’s Technical Working Group (TWG) reviewing SCDOT’s plans for the Route 278 Corridor project. The TWG was started when a group of engineers, technical people and Citizens (with over 200 years of combined technical and management experience) realized that SCDOT was missing important information and computations that would impact the viability, safety, community impacts and costs of the Corridor Project. TWG goals include: to ensure that Corridor plans are scientifically and transparently evaluated, that there are no missing or hidden parts, and that all reasonable options are fairly examined.

Value Engineering Trap

Value engineering is defined as an organized effort analyzing designed project features, material etc. for the purpose of achieving essential functions at the lowest life cycle cost consistent with required performance, quality, reliability, and safety. The Town should be extremely cautious of a potential trap whereby the County or SDDOT may seek commitments from the Town (e.g., free land, Municipal Consent) in return for promises to pay for beautification or other work, only to undo those promises via Value Engineering. This may not happen, but the Town should include contractual clauses to prevent it.