COLUMBIA, S.C. — Dominion Energy announced its Congaree River project is complete, a year ahead of schedule. While cleaning up the mess along the river here in Columbia the energy company said it recovered some historical artifacts.
What lies beneath the surface was a question that sparked a year-long journey to cleanup the Congaree River and now there are hundreds of answers.
“It's got historical artifacts from the beginning of Columbia. We’ve got Native American artifacts out there we’ve got artifacts that we believe came from the canal after the flood,” Sean Norris with TRC, an archaeology company, said.
He along with others sifted through the tar and trash removed from the Congaree during the Dominion Energy cleanup project. The company had to remove toxic coal tar that was left along the banks of the river by a gas plant that had been shut down decades ago.
“I know that the first burn was about two and half acres the first cougher damn that we built the other was a third of that size so that was the footprint for the modified removal plan,” Keller Kissam, Dominion Energy President said.
In the process, the company pulled more than those chemicals from the river.
“We removed an additional two and half tons of other debris out of the river. You get focused on coal tar and yes we took care of the coal tar but you also had other trash,” he said.
Some of the extra debris dates back to the Civil War, with bullets, cannon balls, and even swords. Some of those war artifacts are believed to have been left there by Confederate soldiers during Union General William Sherman’s siege of the city. He marched through Columbia during the Civil War and burned much of the city.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster says its history can’t be forgotten.
“I think its very important. I think we need to preserve our history because we can learn so much from it. We’re in the middle of a restoration of battlefields all across South Carolina.”
The artifacts will go into the State and Confederate museums. Dominion Energy closed its construction site in October of this year.