Mosquito season quiet — so far BY JIM HILLEY jim@theitem.com
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2016
75 CENTS
SERVING SOUTH CAROLINA SINCE OCTOBER 15, 1894
Sumter County seems to have escaped any major mosquito outbreaks so far this summer, according to Mosquito Control Director Allen Penland, but he still hopes the public will stay vigilant in helping control their numbers. “It’s been a little quieter than we anticipated,” Penland said Wednesday. “We haven’t been having to break away from our normal
routes for any hot spots.” Penland said his department has been able to maintain a fairly normal routine as employees rotate between various zones in the county spraying for the annoying insects. “In a normal situation, we have zones and we rotate those, but we do use public calls to help us target certain areas,” he said. “If we get more calls from a certain area it helps us to target the hot spots.”
He said he still would like residents to do what they can to control mosquitoes. “What they do helps what we do,” he said. Residents can help by dumping out anything that contains standing water the mosquitoes can breed in and using repellent to prevent mosquito bites. “Of course, Zika has been in the news everywhere, and we do have
SEE MOSQUITO, PAGE A9
3 SECTIONS, 32 PAGES | VOL. 121, NO. 256
SPECIAL SECTION
Dam repairs delayed
Football season The Sumter Item presents its annual pigskin preview C1 THE CLARENDON SUN
Sen. Tim Scott speaks in Manning A6 DEATHS, B6 Harry Briggs Jr. Skyler Lane Johnson Justin S. Workman Lena G. Epting Elma C. Browning
Carl H. Ross Herman Lowery Helen E. Stevenson Wilbert Hammett
S.C. DNR: Repairing Lake Ashwood may take years
WEATHER, A12
BY JIM HILLEY jim@theitem.com
HOT AND STORMY Cloudy today with strong chance of thunderstorm this afternoon; tonight, early storms, humid. HIGH 93, LOW 74
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Lake Ashwood, in Lee County, has drainage pipes to carry non-existent water over the dam. The lake will remain closed until repairs can be made to the dam, which was damaged during last year’s 1,000-year floods.
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More than 10 months after floods in October 2015, the future of Lake Ashwood remains murky. When the 1,000-year flood damaged the spillway at the lake, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, which leases the property from Lee County School District, and the S.C. National Guard worked to lower the water level in the lake to prevent a breach from causing damage downstream. “We worked with the National Guard and got some sandbags and equipment and tried to get the water down in the lake,” said Ross Self, chief of the Freshwater Fisheries Section at DNR. As a public entity that incurred costs during the nationally declared emergency, the costs could be reimbursed by the Federal
Russia-Iran cooperation in Syria sends message to U.S. WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia’s use of an Iranian air base to bomb targets in Syria sends a message to Washington as it weighs a military partnership with Moscow: Join us or we’ll look to your enemies. Tuesday’s missions were unprecedented. Iran allowed Russian warplanes to take off from its territory to strike opposition targets in Syria. The move came with little notice to the United States, which has watched helplessly the escalating bloodshed near Aleppo, the country’s biggest city, and even offered an alliance with Russia against Islamic
Emergency Management Agency. Self said that because the lake is owned by the school district, the district had to incur the costs, so DNR and the National Guard invoiced the school district for the time and material costs incurred in October. When the school district received the money from FEMA, it was sent on to DNR said LCSD Superintendent Wanda Andrews. “That is what was reimbursed to us,” Self said. He said DNR and the school district are working with the local delegation to the S.C. General Assembly to make some water recreation funds available to contract with an engineer to inspect the dam and develop a plan to repair and restore it. “I’m hoping we’ll see some movement on that before the end of the month,” Self said. “That’s the first step in the process of trying to put the place back together.”
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
State and other extremist fighters as a way to get Syria’s government out of the fight. The negotiations have dragged on for weeks. Russia has grown impatient, with top officials several times suggesting an imminent deal, only to have American officials counter that
the sides weren’t close. The bombing runs from a base near the Iranian city of Hamedan, 175 miles southwest of Tehran, may have been a reminder to the Obama administration that Moscow could be cozying up to Iran if Washington doesn’t come around.
SEE ASHWOOD, PAGE A9
Drop off unused medication Proper disposal of pills prevents environmental contamination in area BY ADRIENNE SARVIS adrienne@theitem.com
A Russian Tu-22M3 bomber stands on the tarmac at an air base near Hamedan, Iran, on Monday. Read the full story at theitem.com.
Self said until the engineering and inspection work is done, it would only be a wild guess to estimate the costs to repair Lake Ashwood. “At that point we will have to identify funds through whatever means can be made available to make those repairs,” he said. He said the reimbursement available from FEMA would be for repairs and not to make improvements or enhancements to the dam. “Our goal right now is to try to get a handle on trying to repair the dam and be able to re-impound the lake,” Ross said. He said the lake has filled with a lot of sediment, and additional funding would be needed to remove the sediment or deepen the lake. “We are currently working on a general permit with the Corp of
Sumter County Sheriff’s Office and Sumter Police Department will hold a Drug Take Back Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Oct. 22 during which time residents can drop off expired and unused medication. Maj. Allen Dailey with the sheriff’s office said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will pick up the collected medication. The DEA collects old medications for disposal twice a year, he said. In most cases, drugs are dropped off by people who have lost family members who had prescription medications, he said. Disposing of drugs on Take Back Day will help reduce the amount of controlled substances introduced
into the local sewer system after being flushed down the drain, Dailey added. Residents without transportation can call the Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Division at (803) 436-2759 to arrange to have medicine picked up, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office. Sumter Police Department Public Information Officer Tonyia McGirt said the DEA collected about 72,000 pills from the city agency during the previous pickup on April 30. She said one of the main reasons to properly dispose of old medication is to prevent the pills from getting into the wrong hands. For more information about Take Back day at the police department, call (803) 436-2700. Although the agencies will be collecting unused pills in October, Sumter residents can drop off old medication at the sheriff’s office, 1281 N. Main St., and the police department,
SEE PILLS, PAGE A9