BMW wants to build an SC plant to make EV batteries. There’s one big thing in their way

BMW is planning to build a $700 million plant to make high voltage batteries for electric vehicles, but there is one thing standing in its way — Lick Creek.

Part of the waterway that flows to the Enoree River in Spartanburg County will need to be filled in to accommodate the plant, which is a piece of BMW’s $1.7 billion investment in electric vehicles. Production of the vehicles will take place at the main plant in Spartanburg, south of Greer, after a $1 million expansion.

The battery plant will cover 1 million square feet and create 300 jobs.

Oliver Zipse, BMW Group Chairman of the Board of Management, said when the project was announced last year that by 2030 BMW Group will build at least six fully electric models in the United States.

BMW looked at 13 sites for the battery plant, whittled it down to five before choosing the 314-acre site along U.S. 101 in Woodruff, south of the main facility, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials saw no concerns for the endangered northern long-eared bat or the dwarf-flowered heartleaf, both found on site. No cultural artifacts would be disturbed. The shrimp found in the creek would be OK, the Corps’ district engineer said.

But Lick Creek was a problem. On the site are two ponds in addition to the creek frontage. All could not be avoided.

So the plant designers moved the building closer to one of the ponds and looked for a place to make up for the damage to the other wetlands.

They found it to the south at Duncan Creek Clinton Tract, a 240-acre piece of property that BMW proposes to preserve in return for being allowed to make changes on their property.

They said they would preserve hardwood trees that have been managed for forestry operations, restore the biodiversity of freshwater ponds and streams and then donate the property to the U.S. Forest Service, which owns some of the adjacent land.

Andrea Cooper, executive director of Upstate Forever, said the property proposed as a trade is downstream from the BMW site. She hopes BMW will work with her agency to minimize impacts and bring solutions closer to the site.

“Upstate Forever understands that local development sometimes includes growing pains, but we take impacts to our local waterways very seriously,” she said.

A BMW spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

The public period for comments is open now. The 30-day period began Dec. 29. Email sac.regulatory.sp@usace.army.mil or U.S.Army Corps of Engineers, 69A Hagood Ave., Charleston 29403.