County staff report progress on Climate Action Plan and hazard assessment; flood mitigation and brownfields projects underway

Charleston County staff told the Resilience and Sustainability Advisory Committee that the county’s Climate Action Plan contains 53 strategies, of which 16 are “in progress,” and presented related resilience projects funded through grants and consultant work.

“Out of the 53 strategies in our climate action plan, we are currently in progress with 16 of those strategies,” said Ali Petruge, the county’s sustainability coordinator. The staff presentation said the plan’s main emissions-reduction goals are a 65% reduction by mid-century milestones cited in the plan and an eventual deeper reduction target.

Molly Cajano, the resilience and sustainability manager, said the county completed a multi-hazard Vulnerability and Risk Assessment in October 2024 and plans to incorporate its data into the five-year hazard mitigation plan cycle. “There was a ton of data collected, for climate modeling, future projections…that are a little bit more advanced,” Cajano said, adding the county worked with Fernleaf Consulting on the assessment.

Cajano described two projects that emerged from the vulnerability assessment: a Flood Mitigation Framework and a Brownfields Redevelopment and Community Revitalization Project. The Flood Mitigation Framework will define criteria to prioritize flood mitigation projects and link a project pipeline to potential funding, using an insurance gap analysis that examines policy and claim patterns under the National Flood Insurance Program. The brownfields project aims to create a countywide inventory and a strategic revitalization plan that goes beyond EPA-designated Superfund sites to include community-identified parcels.

The Hazard Mitigation Plan, adopted in December 2024, will be updated with vulnerability-assessment data across the five-year cycle through December 2029, staff said. Committee members noted the county’s Community Rating System status was favorable; a participant said the county previously qualified for a CRS rating that produced a 40% flood-insurance reduction for qualifying properties.

Staff also reported a pending microgrid proposal developed in partnership with a joint base and applied for through a state veterans-affairs funding source; the microgrid application seeks $1,000,000 and would consider adjacent community needs in FEMA-designated community disaster resilience zones.

Ending: Staff said the flood mitigation framework and brownfields projects were expected to wrap up in May and recommended integrating assessment outputs into project selection and funding pipelines to accelerate mitigation actions.