Farmers' Market stalls
Photos and story by John Temple Ligon

The proposed Cayce site for the Farmers'Market is dangerously close to an EPA Superfund Project, a ground water remediation system. In all, there are five old hazardous- waste dumps in tight proximity with the Cayce site.

S.C. Commissioner of Agriculture Les Tindal had a plan several years ago, a plan to upgrade the 58- acre S.C. State Farmers' Market where it was. Then S.C. Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers had a plan, a plan to move the market to the end of Shop Road to a 194- acre tract purchased by Richland County.

The vendors balked at the expense. The debt payments were too high at the end of Shop Road, even with huge county and state subsidies. The Town of Cayce and Lexington County joined the debate with a privatized 174- acre site on U.S. 321, but the Cayce site is dangerously close to an EPA Superfund Project, a ground water remediation system. In all, there are five old hazardous- waste dumps in tight proximity with the Cayce site.

The Cayce site is good with Commissioner Weathers, the third S.C. Commissioner of Agriculture in the past five years. Developers George Lee and Jim Anderson have assured Weathers presumed contamination of the ground water under and near the site is not a problem. But the EPA still has not released the former dump closest to the site from its designation as one of the nation's most polluted dumps, a Superfund site.

Let's leave it where it is, says Governor Mark Sanford.

Reportedly, 140 million gallons of ground water have been taken out, and almost 13,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil have been removed from the former dump. The site for the farmers' market will need to be filled with 400,000 cubic yards of soil, and that raises the elevation next to a subdivision where the surface water drains to the farmers' market site. The proposed fill of new soil next to the subdivision, it is feared, could reverse the drain flow.

The Cayce site, its developers say, is close to and visible from Interstate 26. A drive down Interstate 26, rubbernecking all the while trying to see the site through the swamp bottom trees, refutes that claim. The distance to downtown Columbia, to the bulk of the prospective retail customers, could be a deal killer. The Cayce site is too far away for any impulse retail shopping, and, again, it's not visible from the Interstate, especially from the intersection of I- 26 and I- 77.

Former Richland County Treasurer Tom Elliott espouses the existing site and still misses the market on Assembly Street, next to the Statehouse grounds before 1952.

The Cayce site on U.S. 321 is at the lowest point of its blacktop approaches. It sits on bottom land, where drainage could be a problem, according to former Richland County Treasurer Tom Elliott, an outspoken critic of the Cayce site.

Elliott espouses the existing site, the S.C. State Farmers' Market across Bluff Road from Williams- Brice Stadium, where it's been since 1952, and where it's visible and accessible from downtown Columbia's high ground. To push the point further, Elliott still misses the market on Assembly Street, next to the Statehouse grounds before 1952.

Visions of the old market along Assembly near Gervais compare favorably with the vegetable bins and the frenetic market activity at Boston's North End in the film, The Thomas Crown Affair, where Dunaway and McQueen's raw selections suggest a positive omen for after- dinner time. In S.C. some of that rubs off in Marion Square on Calhoun on weekends; the same at NYC's Union Square. The best in the country is probably the market in the heart of Lancaster, Penn., where the Amish farmers and others show their produce every day of the week.

Point being, Elliott says, the farmers don't need to go to the bottom land out of sight of the prospective buyers just so some developers' supposed highest and best use of the land at the current market can be realized.

In sports circles, parking for the Gamecock fans for the seven- or- so home games is deemed as more important than a successful farmers' market, but 5,000 cars of ticket holders are parked there already on game days.

Or maybe the developers of Vista Farms, aka Green Diamond, eye the farmers' market's 58 acres as ideal Bluff Road frontage and entry for their lowlands development.

S.C. Governor Mark Sanford, according to his press agent, is against moving the S.C. State Farmers' Market anywhere. Let's leave it where it is, says the governor.