Briefs
by John Temple Ligon

Small- town S.C.

The S.C. Rural Summit is scheduled for March 5- 6 at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Airport Convention Center in North Charleston. Sponsored by the S.C. Department of Commerce, event speakers include Michael MacNulty, chairman of Dublin- based Tourism Development International, and Peter Wentworth, filmmaker. Wentworth's talk is titled, "When Hollywood Comes to South Carolina."

www.sc- commerce.com/scrs2007.

Filming begins

The George Clooney film Leatherheads began filming in the Upstate this week. Directed by Clooney and starring him and Renee Zellweger, Leathernecks is a 1920s romantic comedy about football.

Tuition hit

Among the 16 southeastern states, South Carolina families pay the greatest percentage of their household income to send their children to in- state public colleges and universities, according to Clemson's Strom Thurmond Institute.

SCANA salivates

According to the China Electric Power News, China added more electricity generating power last year than the entire United Kingdom national grid, which has been the case each year for the past several. China added 102 gigawatts of new capacity in the past year, more than twice the total capacity of California.

Speaking of global warming

Among the new electric power plants in China, 90% are powered by coal, 1% by nuclear reactors, and the rest by hydro- electric turbines. Meanwhile, Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways, has offered a $25 million prize for the person who designs a means to capture and remove greenhouse gases - the cause of global warming, supposedly - from the atmosphere.

Duke Energy

Charlotte- based Duke Energy earned $387 million in the last quarter of 2006, down from $601 million for the same time period in 2005. Suffering from merger and restructuring activities in 2006, Duke expects a stronger performance this year. When Duke reported net income of $601 million for the last quarter of 2005, SCANA reported $75 million for the same period.

The Palace no more

The Palace restaurant building on Gervais Street between the tire store and WIS- TV will be redeveloped as office space. The two- story building has 9,800 square feet.

Benedict turns the corner

For three years until last June 30, Benedict College ran a total deficit of $8.9 million. Since June 30, Benedict operated with a $1 million surplus.

McClatchy takes a hit

Parent company of The Charlotte Observer, The Sun News of Myrtle Beach, and The State, among many other newspapers, The McClatchy Company reported a 2006 fourth- quarter loss of $279.3 million, down from a profit of $45.4 million for the same period in 2005. McClatchy bought the Star Tribune of Minneapolis for $1.2 billion in 1998, and the company sold the paper recently for $530 million, less than half the purchase price.

Greenville transit

The Greenville Transit Authority studied an internal comparison of GTA with eight other bus systems in smaller urban areas, and every one of the eight transit systems operated more buses than the GTA. Next door to Greenville and smaller than Greenville, Spartanburg has twice the buses the GTA has running at peak hours.

Richland County sewerage service

Richland County expects to raise sewerage rates to carry the costs of expansions to the system. New homeowners in the county might pay an additional $800 in tap fees (from $2,200 to $3,000) and almost $9 more in monthly service fees (from $29.80 to $38.56).

Water is big business

General Electric Financial Services is buying 95% of Idex Aquaservices, a French outfit that extracts and treats water for industrial use. The price of the sale is confidential. GE recently announced it intends to spend more than $1 billion buying water infrastructure projects over the next two years. The GE estimate for the global need for water infrastructure investments is $50 billion. Point being, the City of Columbia could seriously consider pricing its water system for sale on the world market.

River shacks facing extinction

In the Stump Hole Swamp area of Lake Marion is the highest concentration of river shacks, a vernacular housing type. River shacks float on pontoons or 55- gallon drums. They have no sanitary connections for clean water supply or for sewage discharge. Also, most favorable to the homeowner, they have no real estate costs in setting up house. The river shacks simply float on Lake Marion and elsewhere in S.C. with no land purchase costs and no land lease payments and no property taxes, apparently, even though the river shacks are supposed to be licensed as houseboats. There are about 60 river shacks on Lake Marion, for now. State Rep. David Umphlett Jr., R- Moncks Corner, introduced a bill last week to outlaw river shacks.