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Nearly 100 books were temporarily pulled from school library shelves in South Carolina's Beaufort County; most of the books were eventually returned after a review.

The ban campaign kicked off when two county residents, one of them a parent and former member of Moms for Liberty — a conservative nonprofit that advocates for "parental rights" — filed complaints. They presented a list of 97 books they alleged didn't belong on school bookshelves.

Where did the 97 books on the list come from?

The list of books originated from a site called BookLooks, founded two years ago by a Florida nurse who is a former member of Moms for Liberty. She said volunteers rate books on the site from 0-5 using BookLooks' standards, including for "explicit sexual nudity" and "gender ideologies." Each rating includes a count of how many times words that it judges to be obscene are used.

A Beaufort County parent discovered that 96 books with ratings of 3 or higher from the BookLooks list were available in county public schools and wrote the school system to complain in October 2022. Another resident added a 97th book to the list. A small number of other parents and residents spoke publicly in favor of the proposed book bans.

The school board's procedure called for the challenged books to be left on the shelves while they were reviewed. However, the district superintendent feared violence after getting the list, because a few people were threatening to have librarians and other educators arrested. Within days, he had the books temporarily pulled from school library shelves while they were reviewed.

How did Beaufort County decide which books to ban and which to return?

The county began efforts to review the books by asking Beaufort residents to read all the books on the list. Over the course of a year, 146 parents and community members — along with teachers, librarians and educators — discussed, deliberated and voted.

The final book panels met in late November and their decisions were approved during a school board meeting in December. Most of the 97 books were cleared, with some only returned to high school libraries. The review team discovered one of the 97 books on the list had never been on school library shelves to begin with.

Full list of the five banned books and the 92 that were returned

Editor's note: 97 Books Producer Henry Schuster is a resident of Beaufort County, South Carolina. He participated on one of the book review committees before beginning to produce the report for 60 Minutes.

Scott Pelley

Scott Pelley, one of the most experienced and awarded journalists today, has been reporting stories for "60 Minutes" since 2004. The 2023-24 season is his 20th on the broadcast. Scott has won half of all major awards earned by "60 Minutes" during his tenure at the venerable CBS newsmagazine.

Some Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority customers in parts of Beaufort County received a letter about water quality that left them startled and questioning why it took so long for the utility to notify them.

For two quarters during 2023, water South of the Broad River violated a standard for safe drinking, but customers weren’t notified until this month.

The letter said tests showed a higher than acceptable level of haloacetic acid, also known as HAA5.

It says, “Some people who drink water containing haloacetic acids in excess of the [maximum contamination levels] over many years may have an increased risk of getting cancer.”

Haley Hughes, public education and engagement planner for BJWSA, gave The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette context for the term “many years.”

“We have searched and searched and searched to find a concrete definition of ‘many years,’” Hughes said. “And no one entity has accurately pinpointed what many years means. But in general, we believe we’re talking about 70 years.”

“One exposure, one week, one month of exposure is not what what regulators are concerned about,” said Jeff La Rue, spokesperson for BJWSA.

Posts about BJWSA’s letter drew hundreds of comments on Facebook, with people’s concerns mostly surrounding the cancer risk, the time it took them to be notified and, in some cases, wondering if the water was safe for their pets. No one The Island Packet reached out to was willing to comment on the record by publication time.

“We completely understand that not only are people concerned about themselves ingesting the water, but their pets too,” Hughes said.

HAA5s are five compounds that form when disinfectants react with natural organic material, such as tree branches, leaves or algae, in the water, BJWSA said in the letter.

The maximum contamination level for HAA5 is 0.060 mg per liter, as set by the Environmental Protection Agency and the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. During the third quarter of 2023, the average level of HAA5 in southern Beaufort County was recorded as 0.061; during the fourth quarter, it was 0.069.

The quarterly tests are averaged together and build upon each other throughout the year in a way similar to how schools average students’ grades over the course of a school year. Because the fourth quarter average was much higher than in previous quarters, BJWSA experts believe something that happened between October and December is the likely cause.

For context, the yearly average of HAA5s for 2023 was 0.044, and it was 0.059 in 2022.

La Rue, the BJWSA spokesperson, pointed to two factors for the increase at the end of 2023: an increased amount of chlorine to fight water discoloration, as detailed in the letter, and a chlorine generator malfunction.

The malfunction meant that BJWSA had to have chlorine trucked in and chlorine concentration levels were likely to fluctuate, La Rue said.

In early December, DHEC collected water samples for the fourth quarter.

After DHEC notified BJWSA that the levels exceeded the maximum contamination level, the utility had 30 days to inform their customers. The timeline and process for notification, including using the mail, was mandated by DHEC, La Rue said.

The letter sent to customers was dated and mailed on Dec. 29 and posted to the BJWSA website on Jan. 11, Hughes said.

“I really want to stress this,” La Rue said. “This is not an emergency. The the public notice is because customers have the right to know that this average went above the threshold of 0.060. Had it been an emergency, we would have notified people customers right away.”

He added: “One milligram per liter is equal to one penny in $10,000. It’s one word out of five Harry Potter books.”

BJWSA has since reduced the amount of chlorine added to the water and replaced the malfunctioning generator. HAA5 levels in the water are below 0.060, La Rue said.

This story was originally published January 24, 2024, 11:53 AM.

Cast and crew of the hit Netflix show “Outer Banks” returned to Hunting Island State Park this week to film for the series’ upcoming fourth season. The two-day shoot took place near the park’s iconic lighthouse, a recurring setting for the action-packed teen drama.

Scenes filmed in the area on Monday and Tuesday included most of the main cast, including actors Rudy Pankow and Madison Bailey. Production temporarily shut down the park’s north-beach parking lot and spaces around the Hunting Island Lighthouse, which has been closed to the public since early 2022.

This won’t be the first time the prized state park in northern Beaufort County has served as the show’s natural backdrop, said Matt Storm, film commissioner for the state of South Carolina. The pilot episode features a drunken brawl between characters at “The Boneyard,” filmed at the park’s similarly-nicknamed maritime forest. The Hunting Island Lighthouse is seen several times throughout the first season, used interchangeably with the interior of Folly Beach’s Morris Island Lighthouse to depict the series’ fictional Redfield Lighthouse.

Storm said production crews tried to film a few “driving scenes” on Hunting Island beaches in June 2023, but the location “didn’t work out,” prompting a reshoot in North Carolina. The SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike began the next month and suspended filming operations in Charleston, where most of the series is filmed.

Despite its titular setting, very little of “Outer Banks” is filmed at the major tourist destination, a 200-mile string of barrier islands off the coasts of North Carolina and Virginia. Production was originally intended for Wilmington, N.C., but was moved to the Palmetto State due to North Carolina’s controversial anti-transgender bathroom bill that was enacted in 2016.

“Outer Banks” follows a group of teenagers living on Pleasure Island, a coastal town with wide social rifts between wealthy seasonal residents and working-class locals — known in the show’s universe as “Kooks” and “Pogues,” respectively. A search for one character’s missing father plunges the group into a high-stakes treasure hunt.

Like in the first season, the upcoming episodes of “Outer Banks” will likely feature a few Beaufort County residents as extras. A casting call for the Hunting Island shoot asked for six background actors aged 18 to 25 to play “beach Pogues.”

Showrunners paid a “small fee” to Hunting Island for use of the filming location, according to Storm. Park rangers were also paid to be temporarily folded into the crew as “site representatives,” using their knowledge of the location to make sure filming ran smoothly.

Production for the fourth season of “Outer Banks” is scheduled to wrap up in early August, according to IMDb. Netflix says the new episodes will release by the end of 2024.

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By Bill Rauch

There’s been some weird stuff going on in Beaufort lately.

For example, there’s a building project called Pintail Pointe now under construction at 2233 Boundary Street.

What’s weird about that?

It’s being built right on the right-of-way of the so-called “parallel road” that was designated by the Beaufort City Council as a key part of the Boundary Street Master Plan.

So, there’s a building being built right where a road was supposed to go? How did that happen?

According to city council members who were there at the time, the permit was as much as issued before they were told anything about it. In fact, they say, when they were first told about the Pintail Pointe project, they were also told that it was so far along that if they tried to stop it, the city would be sued for millions.

That’s weird. When there are controversial permits under consideration, city managers always give council members – either one-by-one or in executive session – a heads-up. But this building permit wasn’t just controversial. It was clearly contrary to the expressed wishes of city council who had not only designated the right-of-way, but had also for years in planning sessions expressed their support for building the road.

That’s really weird.

Not since Jack Miller in 1988 has Beaufort had a city manager who took an official action that was contrary to the expressed will of council.

Who was this city manager?

Bill Prokop. But when I called the present city manager, Scott Marshall, and asked him to call Prokop – who left town a while ago – and ask him if he would talk to me about the substance of this column, he told me Prokop didn’t want to talk to me.

That’s weird. When he was city manager, Prokop always took my calls.

The problem here is that 2233 Boundary Street puts the city’s motorists into a real pickle. The Boundary Street Master Plan called for Boundary Street to be beautified, and it has been. The replacement of the unattractive and dangerous “suicide lane” with the planted median might slow traffic down some, the planners said, but that will be more than compensated for by the additional capacity provided by the parallel road.

According to the traffic engineers, the stretch of Boundary Street between the Chick-fil-A and City Hall is Boundary Street’s (and the city’s) most heavily traveled roadway, so this is important. This is the bottleneck.

There was once another new corridor planned that was going to relieve traffic on Boundary Street too. It was called the Northern Crossing. But Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling weirdly sat on his hands and watched the seed money for that project get spent in Bluffton.

Meanwhile, according to Beaufort County’s Building Codes Department, Beaufort County issued to Lady’s Island developers 3,640 residential building permits in the 14 months between October 25, 2021 and December 31, 2022.

According to the County’s Codes and Public Information people, that is the only data the county has on Lady’s Island residential building permits. It is plenty enough to be scary. That’s 260 new houses being permitted on Lady’s Island every month, or about 8.5 houses per day.

If a house equals two-and-a-half trips per day, as planners calculate, that’s about 21 new trips per day … every day, month after month. A couple of thousand trips here, a couple of thousand trips there, and pretty soon you’ve got a traffic jam.

Here’s another weird one.

The guy who was negotiating with Pintail Pointe’s developer, according to councilmembers, was the city’s Director of Community and Economic Development and its Zoning Administrator, David Prichard. Because the parallel road right-of-way had been designated in the Boundary Street Master Plan, Prichard could have threatened the developer with the city condemning the right of way. City councils try to stay away from eminent domain. However, Prichard could also have traded density for the right of way. But he offered neither the carrot nor the stick, councilmembers say they were told.

It’s weird the way the city rolled over so easily on the parallel road.

Or is it?

Perhaps it’s a coincidence that 303 Associates, the real estate development firm, has always opposed the Boundary Street Master Plan’s parallel road proposed alignment, and they have instead favored an alignment that goes along the east side of Albergotti Creek. This is because, Dick Stewart confirmed to me recently, the creek-side alignment would facilitate 303 Associates’ stated goal of opening up their Beaufort Plaza to the water.

Readers may remember that David Prichard’s wife, Vanessa, worked as a leasing agent for 303 Associates while her husband was the City’s Planner and Zoning Administrator. This perceived conflict of interest raised eyebrows. When they were asked, the South Carolina State Ethics Commission said David Prichard should no longer review 303 Associates’ projects.

In the wake of that ruling, City Manager Prokop did not stand up to a working group to examine Prichard’s pipeline. Had he, the working group might have found that Prichard was in the process of permitting a project that was contrary to the expressed wishes of council.

But, according to council members, Prokop made no effort to look back over Prichard’s work. That was weird.

And it is also weird that when I asked Scott Marshall to ask David Prichard – who has also left town, but for whom City Hall undoubtedly still has a contact number – if Prichard would like to be interviewed for this column, Marshall told me that in his opinion it would be “inappropriate” for City Hall to reach out to Prichard.

There is absolutely nothing inappropriate about such a request. In fact, such efforts are common courtesies to former officials.

Moreover, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request to the city, I have now been waiting since Dec. 1, 2023 for several documents relating to other approvals given during Prokop’s last days on the job.

That, too, is unusual, weird, and it suggests stonewalling. Well-run governments get FOIA requests by reporters back in no more than 14 days, and it is customary for government officials to ask reporters for their deadlines and to try to get the reporters what they need by their deadlines which may be in just hours.

Mayor Phil Cromer has his work cut out for him. In his campaign, Cromer said transportation would be a focus area for him. There is no greater transportation challenge facing the city today than revisiting the parallel road, identifying a new right-of-way, and securing it.

But, having been a very good and professional city manager himself, Cromer’s greatest challenge will be to get the weird stuff cut out, and to bring back to Beaufort’s City Hall good government and professionalism.

Bill Rauch was the Mayor of Beaufort from 1999 to 2008 and has twice won awards from the S.C. Press Association for his Island News columns. He can be reached at The RauchReport@gmail.com.

Most of the whole country is talking about the total solar eclipse that is coming on Monday, April 8th. But, what will we see in Beaufort?

Well, here in South Carolina, the astronomical event will be far less dramatic compared to the total solar eclipse we experienced, in totality, in 2017. This year, the path of totality is Texas and points Northeast through parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio.

In the Upstate, folks will be a bit luckier then they will be here in Beaufort. The eclipse in the Upstate will block out 85% of the sun at its maximum at about 3:05pm on Monday.

In South Carolina, the moon will block anywhere from 74.6% of the sun to 85.3% at its peak, according to data from Eclipse2024.org.

The mountain areas of the Palmetto State will see the greatest eclipse while coastal areas, including Beaufort, will see the least in South Carolina.

Beaufort County will enjoy a fairly advanced partial eclipse, with about 75% of the sun being blocked by the moon at approximately 3:08pm on Monday.

The partial eclipse is expected to begin around 1:52 PM and conclude around 4:25 PM. This time frame coincides with school dismissal for students. Parents and guardians are urged to remind their children that looking directly at the sun is always hazardous and can cause permanent damage to their eyesight.

Viewing the eclipse without proper eye safety can cause loss of vision, especially in children whose still-developing eyes may be particularly at risk. Symptoms of eye damage can include blurry vision, distorted vision or ‘blind spots.’ The resulting damage could be temporary or permanent.

Experts warn to not make the mistake of thinking a partial eclipse is less dangerous – if anything, it’s more dangerous because the sun is never fully blocked. That goes for the solar eclipse in Beaufort. Take steps now to ensure you can have a fun but also safe viewing experience.

Here are a few tips to keep you and your children’s eyes protected while enjoying the eclipse:

• Use eclipse glasses or handheld solar viewers, not regular sunglasses

• Indirect viewing methods

• Don’t recycle solar safety glasses

The U.S. won’t see another coast-to-coast solar eclipse until 2045 so, by all means, get out with your older children to enjoy this rare event, just prepare ahead of time to ensure everyone stays safe.

Enjoy the solar eclipse, Beaufort.