Charleston Currents

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Pictured from left are: SC Ports COO Barbara Melvin, Jaden Warren, Corbin Pritchard, Noah Cowell, Promise Washington, Rashard Davis and Jordi Yarborough, SC Ports' Senior Vice President of Community Engagement, as they celebrate names for new cranes at the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal in North Charleston. (Ports Authority Photo by English Purcell provided.)

FOCUS: Area students name five cranes at new terminal

Staff reports | What do these five names have in common — Nifty Lifty, Sir Lift-A-Lot, No Crane No Gain, South Craneolina and The Reel Steel?

Answer: They’re the new names of five big ship-to-shore cranes at the S.C. Ports Authority’s Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal in North Charleston.

Each of the cranes was named as part of a “Name the Cranes” contest with area elementary students in third to fifth grades. The winners represent five schools and four municipalities, including two schools in North Charleston, which is where Leatherman Terminal is located, according to the ports.

“South Carolina Ports enjoys partnering with local schools to engage students and connect them to our operations and workforce. Our Names the Cranes contest is a really special way for students to connect with the port,” said Barbara Melvin, chief operating officer of SC Ports.

by Charleston Currents · 06/07/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Aerial view in 2018 of the MOX plant at Savannah River Site. Photo is ©High Flyer, via SRS Watch. Used by permission.

NEWS BRIEFS: Tons of nuclear waste predicted at proposed SRS project

Staff reports | A plan to restart a defunct South Carolina nuclear facility near Aiken with a new mission has safety advocates worried about tons of new nuclear waste in a state with a checkered radioactivity record.

by Charleston Currents · 06/07/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

From Becca Hopkins' Expressway show, which opens June 4. Image via Redux.

FOCUS: Redux hosts opening of two new art exhibitions

Staff reports | The Redux Contemporary Art Center opens two new shows this week with one dedicated to a talented watercolorist and the other featuring works of several studio artists.

Charleston native Becca Hopkins offers a series of poignant watercolors June 4 to June 17 in her first solo show at Redux’s Gallery 1056. Called, “Expressway” and curated by Mia Loa, Hopkins’ art highlights the “immensity and artificiality of the Septima P. Clark Expressway stands in jarring contrast with the soft and settled 19th and early 20th century homes around it. It is an alien and alienating landscape that interrupted the human ebb-and-flow of mid-century Charleston,” according to the gallery.

A generation ago, the highway carved through a tight-knit predominantly Black community, displacing approximately 150 residences and businesses in its path. …

by Charleston Currents · 05/31/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Photos by English Purcell, via SC Ports.

NEWS BRIEFS: Whoa — that is a big ship

Staff reports | Hundreds of people snapped pictures last week as the largest ship ever to call on the East Coast sailed into the port of Charleston. The South Carolina Ports Authority welcomed the record-breaking CMA CGM MARCO POLO to Wando Welch Terminal on May 28. The vessel measures 1,300 feet long and can carry up to 16,022 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent container units). That makes the ship as long as 1.5 USS Yorktowns and seven 787-8 Boeing-made Dreamliner jets.

by Charleston Currents · 05/31/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

FOCUS: Charleston Law graduate wins prestigious fellowship

Staff reports | Michelle Mapp, a 2021 graduate of the Charleston School of Law, is one of 77 public interest lawyers who will be a fellow with Equal Justice Works, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that seeks to promote a lifelong commitment to public service and equal justice.

“Coming into law school, I knew about the Equal Justice Works because I knew Amy Armstrong who runs the S.C. Environmental Law Project, and she had done a fellowship and gotten her start that way,” said Mapp, who entered law school mid-career after serving as executive director of the S.C. Community Loan Fund. “In my second year at law school, I did an internship with the S.C. ACLU, and it sparked my interest in the right to counsel.”

by Charleston Currents · 05/24/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

NEWS BRIEFS: Spoleto season starts May 28; Piccolo guide is now online

Staff reports | Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival returns May 28 with a slate of all-free, all-outdoor performances and safe, pandemic-friendly exhibitions that will scratch that itch you’ve been feeling to get out and experience the Holy City’s creative community.

by Charleston Currents · 05/24/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

FOCUS: Tips on tax day if you can’t afford to pay now

Staff reports | State and federal individual income taxes are due today, a month after the regular deadline thanks to the pandemic. But what do you do if you can’t afford to pay right now? The S.C. Department of Revenue (SCDOR) says there are options:

First, the IRS advises, don’t panic. Both the IRS and the SCDOR offer payment plans that may be available to you.

Second, here’s what the agencies say not to do:

* Do not delay filing your return on time. Filing your return on time will reduce the amount of penalty and interest you will owe, which is added based on the amount of tax not paid by the due date (which is May 17 this year).

* Do not believe paying installments to the SCDOR and the IRS is your only choice. Weigh your options. …

by Charleston Currents · 05/17/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News

NEWS BRIEFS: Legislative work left on the table for summer, fall and 2022

Staff reports | State lawmakers finished their regular legislative session Thursday but still have a lot of work this year. In June, they’re expected to finish with reform to the state’s utility, Santee Cooper, and put final touches on the state’s $11 billion spending plan for 2021-22. Then in the fall, they’ll return to Columbia to hammer out constitutionally-mandated redistricting and details of two supplemental appropriations bills.

by Charleston Currents · 05/17/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

Photo of this pond at the Willtown tract provided.

FOCUS: Charleston County’s Willtown tract gets permanent protection

By Skyler Baldwin, Charleston City Paper | The Nature Conservancy (TNC) announced Friday that the third-largest undeveloped tract of land in Charleston County is under permanent protection through a conservation easement that supports agricultural, forestry and recreational use.

The Willtown tract, 2,101 acres of undeveloped land, contributes to a 29-mile contiguous corridor of natural habitats for wildlife. The easement will keep the property under private ownership by TNC, promoting conservation and limiting its future development.

“Willtown is a very large property, but the impact of its protection is even larger,” TNC executive director Dale Threatt-Taylor said in a press release.

by Charleston Currents · 05/10/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

NEWS BRIEFS: Charleston’s Scott draws two Democratic challengers

Staff reports | U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a Charleston County Republican, now has two Democrats running to snare his seat — second-term state Rep. Krystle Matthews and Spartanburg County Democratic Party chair Angela Geter.

by Andy Brack · 05/10/2021 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs