Keepers of  the marsh

STORY BY BARRY KAUFMAN + PHOTOGRAPHY BY LISA STAFF

There’s magic in our marshes. Thanks to the sprawling wetlands that curl and entwine themselves around our home, we can always smell what the tide is doing. We can look out across its expanse and watch wildlife on the wing. We can venture out, hip waders on, in search of the delicious bounty that clings to its pluff mud.

There’s a reason Pat Conroy equated living here with the marsh. Writing in The Prince of Tides, he said, “To describe our growing up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open you an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, ‘There. That taste. That’s the taste of my childhood.’”

The flavors, the smells and the vibrant wildlife coalesce into a potion that makes every day here a little more enchanted. Here we meet three locals who have spent years studying its mystic recipe.

Andy Jones

Spring Island Trust

If there’s one way to truly appreciate the complex ecology of the South, it’s to leave it behind for a while. Andy Jones can testify to the perspective one gains as a prodigal son. A native of Kingsport, Tenn., his love affair with the natural world began at a young age — counting toads in his front yard and taking exhaustive field notes on his findings. Shifting to ornithology, he took wing to the University of Tennessee and the University of Minnesota, where he earned his bachelor’s and PhD. That led to a 16-year career as curator of ornithology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

“After sixteen Cleveland winters and six Minnesota winters, I was ready to get back South,” he said. “I wanted to reclaim my Southern roots and the biodiversity that comes with it.”

He found no small measure of both at Spring Island Trust, where he was hired as executive director in 2022. Centered on the community of Spring Island, the trust serves dual purposes: The first is to steward more than 1,100 acres on the barrier island, protecting the delicate balance of its pristine wilderness. The second is to engage with the community, sharing knowledge and promoting the importance of preserving our land.

“That’s really the key — the unique setup we have here,” he said. “Having a nonprofit within the community that’s here to represent the value of nature and extend that mission across the Lowcountry really attracted me.”

Working with a team that includes Tony Mills, host of the South Carolina ETV show Coastal Kingdom, and other talented naturalists, Jones is spreading the same joy he discovered as a child. And for a kid who grew up marveling at birds in landlocked states, his time on Spring Island has unlocked an entirely new dimension of his passion for wildlife.

“This area is really a nursery for a lot of very important game fish and shrimp,” he said. “And it’s fascinating because we really only have one species of plant. But Spartina is amazing, and it’s the entire basis for this incredible ecosystem.”

And he’s seen a few. Before coming here, he served on the boards of Black Swamp Bird Observatory and Winous Point Marsh Conservancy, two vast marshlands where the edge of Lake Erie sweeps toward Put-in-Bay. Arriving in the Lowcountry, he got a crash course in what separates salt and freshwater marshes.

“The diversity here is just different. I knew the birds of this region, but plant life was a bigger challenge. There was a pretty steep learning curve,” he said. Just the same, within a few months of encountering this stunning new ecosystem, he was already co-leading master naturalist classes. And he gives full credit to the Spring Island Trust staff for helping him get up to speed.

“This organization has a remarkable staff. They’re dedicated, but they’re also unbelievably knowledgeable and full of passion. It’s a great staff to work with.”

A landscape drowned in time

To Andy Jones, the miracle of our marshland lies in the animals that call it home. But when you look below the surface — peeling back thousands of years of shifting shorelines — you uncover the secret origins of our one-of-a-kind ecosystem.

“The landscape around Port Royal Sound was something I didn’t know much about until moving here. I still think it’s too well-kept a secret,” he said. “It’s not like any other saltwater ecosystem along the coast. When sea levels were lower, this was the upper end of a river that flowed hundreds of miles toward the more distant coast. When they rose to their current levels, they drowned the watershed.”

Essentially, the rivers that feed our marshes aren’t necessarily rivers in the strictest sense. Jones compares them to saltwater that sloshes inland twice a day with the tides.

“You can go to the Broad River Bridge, which is about 15 miles from the open ocean, and find nearly full-strength salt water,” he said. “You don’t really see that anywhere else. Between the high tides and low topography, we have tons of salt marsh. In fact, Beaufort County has half of South Carolina’s total marshland.”

Jay Walea

Palmetto Bluff Conservancy

When the first developers arrived at Palmetto Bluff with plans to transform the old paper company hunting grounds into one of the premier luxury communities on the East Coast, they received an unexpected bonus. Along with 20,000 acres of pristine Lowcountry marshland, maritime forests and cultivated fields, they inherited a man who has come to symbolize the wild nature of this special place.

“I’ve been here 33 years, so I came with the property,” said Jay Walea, executive director of the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy, and both a disciple and steward of Palmetto Bluff’s natural beauty. “When I first came here, I was about 10 years old. Now I’m the old man.”

His first introduction to the land came through his father, who worked in asset management for Union Camp Corporation. That meant regular trips to the untamed property at the edge of the world — a vast expanse the paper company maintained as hunting grounds for its executives and guests. “I told my daddy when I was 13 that I was going to come work out here. I ran hunts all the way up to college, then interned here and never left.”

His role with the conservancy requires him to wear many hats — as well as snake boots and hip waders, depending on where the day takes him. One day might mean leading a hunt for turkey, deer or hogs to help manage herd sizes. Another might involve conducting final inspections on a home to ensure it was built with respect for the surrounding ecology. Some days it means wading into a lagoon to handle a nuisance alligator. This time of year it means setting controlled fires to prevent the kind of wildfires that have plagued the Upstate.

“We are supposed to be the safeguards of the property, so we basically get our hands on anything and everything,” he said. “I used to always say that the most important thing we do is wildlife management. But really and truly, the most important thing we do is outreach and education.”

Through wildlife tours and seminars, Walea and his team of four Conservancy staff serve as voices for the land’s pristine beauty, helping to spread the gospel of a place that captured his heart when he was just a kid.

“My hope is that I can convince more people to put land into conservation in perpetuity. That’s my thought riding in here every morning — that we have to conserve the land,” he said. “Now that’s not the same as preserving the land. That sounds sexy, but preservation means leaving it alone and letting Mother Nature take its course. But that isn’t how it works. Conservation is where it’s at —maximizing and utilizing our natural resources responsibly.”

Guarding the balance of the Bluff

For Jay Walea, who has spent 33 years traversing every forest, glen and marsh among the 20,000 acres of Palmetto Bluff, there is a sanctity to the marshland that stretches across the property.

“A lot of times I’ll find myself out on the causeway at Long Island, looking out across that hard marsh. You don’t hear any backpack blowers, you don’t hear any lawnmowers. Occasionally you’ll hear the crab boats coming in to check their pots,” he said. “Looking out across there makes you feel like you’re the only person on earth, and it is definitely where I find my peace.”

Preserving that peace means conserving the land — ensuring that no matter how many new homes or neighborhoods Palmetto Bluff creates, each respects the community’s guiding ethos of maintaining nature’s balance.

“The best way to protect the marsh is to make sure you’re not letting people build right up next to it,” he said. But even with a 100-foot buffer, called the River Overlay Protection District, in place, Walea’s time-tested practices add extra protection. “When you get a heavy driving rain, you’ll still get runoff headed toward the marsh. But saving the understory and the midstory of the surrounding forests filters out those contaminants. It’s all about the marsh, but, truly, it’s about all of the land.”

Jody Hayward

Port Royal Sound Foundation

When your kids visit the Port Royal Sound Foundation Maritime Center, they may see it as just another fun field trip. They won’t even realize how much invaluable knowledge they’re absorbing as they move from tank to tank, getting up close and personal with the sea life that calls our waterways and marshes home. They’ll be too busy having fun to notice how much their perspective is expanding — or how much more respect they’ll have for their Lowcountry home by the time they leave.

They may not realize it, but Jody Hayward will. Creating that understanding and expanding that perspective is what drives her.

“School kids on trips have been the bread and butter of what we do — creating a place for kids, families and visitors to come, learn, experience, get a little dirty and enjoy this environment,” she said. “These kids don’t always have the opportunity to do that, and we want to help them connect and understand how special this place is.”

Those field trips are just a small part of what the Port Royal Sound Foundation does to protect our rivers and marshes.

“We love being that resource that connects people to the water. A few years ago we started water quality monitoring, and it has grown into this robust citizen science program, with wonderful volunteers monitoring water quality all around the watershed,” she said. Those volunteers are helping the foundation gauge the health of local waters, comparing new findings to historical data for a more complete picture. “We’re so lucky to have such a pristine body of water, but we definitely have to stay on top of things and be proactive in keeping it in good shape. We’re expanding roads, building new neighborhoods and adding infrastructure to accommodate everyone moving here. We, as a whole, need to make sure we’re doing these things in the right way and in the right place.”

This ambitious broadening of the foundation’s scope has been Hayward’s signature approach since long before she came to the Lowcountry more than 20 years ago. Leaving the “white-knuckle, fast-paced” atmosphere of Atlanta for Beaufort, she quickly got involved in the community. Planning for what would become Riverview Charter School started in 2005, with her serving as co-founder when it opened just four years later.

“That was an amazingly rewarding and difficult endeavor to be a part of, but the school is flourishing. I’m so proud of all it has accomplished,” she said. “That’s really what gave me the bug for doing things that are community-based — because you can see what your hard work is doing for the community.”

Through Mike Long, then chairman of the Port Royal Sound Foundation, she began volunteering and fell in love with the mission. When the opportunity arose to lead as director, she didn’t have to be asked twice.

“That was an amazing moment for me — to jump in and help this wonderful group of founders create a museum for the public and tell the story of the waterways that cover 50 percent of our area,” she said. “We’re saturated by the Sound.”

Conserving the waters that sustain us

The scope of the Port Royal Sound Foundation’s mission extends far beyond the static displays and exciting attractions of its maritime center. Behind the scenes its staff and volunteers are working tirelessly to conserve and protect our waterways in a multitude of ways.

“That combination of education and research is really what drives the mission to conserve the Port Royal Sound. It’s such a cycle — the more you learn, the more it fuels education, and the more people are educated, the more they want to know. That ultimately helps build this culture of conservation,” she said. “And it’s not just us—there are so many great partner organizations doing incredible work in conservation. By combining our efforts, we can accomplish so much more.”

That means initiatives like bringing on Courtney Kimmel, director of conservation, to develop a strategic plan for research. They’ve hosted research symposiums, bringing together the brightest minds in conservation. They’ve organized catch-and-release fishing tournaments to assess fish populations. And they’ve partnered with USCB on Pritchards Island to explore the mysteries of our local ecology.

“Our focus is on painting a picture of what we know — what data we have, what we need to facilitate and who we need to connect with,” she said. “There hasn’t been a lot of research done here. It’s exciting new territory for researchers.”