 We just appreciate you being here today. There are a couple people I want to recognize quickly. First of all, Mr. Charlie Thompson. Where's Charlie? Charlie was our landlord for this. He represents the Guignard family. And for 13 years, Charlie has been our landlord as we have labored through this entire project. And it's been a pleasure to work with him along with Bill Boyd, who's very close to him and the Boyd family and everything they mean to the city of Columbia and the Guignard family as well. It all talks about South Carolina and relationships and people that really make the difference. And Charlie, we appreciate everything you've done to make this successful. And we look forward to a great future and continuing to support you as we go forward. Thank you for being here today. In addition to that, you know, we had a big old flood come through here in 2015. I don't know if you remember that all of you would need scuba gear based upon how high that water was. And at that same time, we were looking at this cofferdam, you can't drive sheep pylons out here. You have to do it with rock and we were like, What are we gonna do? And everybody was kind of throwing their hands up. But government master, he started saying, Keller, we're gonna get this cleaned up for South Carolina for accessibility, this great natural resource. And after that happened, I have to give credit to his deputy chief of staff, Mark Ploudon. I don't know if Mark is here today or not, but he kind of brought all the stakeholders back together and allowed us to come up with a modified removal plan. And he deserves a lot of credit from that standpoint. You have to have good regulators and good partners on that. And we certainly had that with South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. And their director here on the environmental side, Maura Reese, along with Keith Frost and Gary Stewart. And then you got to have boots on the ground. So Greg Cassidy and Lucas Beresford, who were our project managers on this project, we salute you in partnering with us and bringing it to fruition. So thanks to this great state agency and all the work that you did as well. In addition to that, the US Army Corps of Engineers, you deal with a navigable river, you got to have the core there. And they were just as an essential partner for us and Bryce McCoy and Amy Capolino are here with the US Army Corps of Engineers. And we thank you for that. Then you got to have good regulators supporting you as well. And we certainly had that from the Office of Regulatory Staff. They spent many times out here inspecting what was going on just like the other agencies in Michael Seaman Wynn. And he is joined today by the Executive Director of Office of Regulatory Staff, Andrew Bateman. And we appreciate all of the oversight you provided for us. We've got SHPO, we've got the Confederate Relic Room and the State Archaeology Office. I mean, go and look when they said Sherman burned Arsenal and threw everything in the river, he did throw it in the river. And we were blessed to be able to pull it out and it'll be for generations to come a lesson in living history. In addition to that, we're leaving it cleaner than we found it. Because in addition to those relics you see, we also pulled out 2.5 tons of just litter, debris and a bunch of tires. Oh, they say we're the tire capital of the Southeast. Well, there were a lot of tires in this river that we were able to pull out. And that's what we're here today to do, leave it better than we found it. And I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize some of those groups who were out here down in these pits, coming up engineering as they went along, because you're dealing with a flowing river. Like I said, this is the only project done like it in the United States. intact, Mitch Blanchard, Pete Porter, Stephen Creighton and Eric Garinger, apex, Kayla Jones, ace, Rusty Contrell, and he even brought his wife, Brenda, because I think Brenda wondered where he'd been all this time. He was down hit the river, Brenda, I promise you, from TRC, Sean Norris, Jim leg and Mona Grunden. And in addition to that, we had to have a lot of support from all of our stakeholders around us. Mr. Howard DeVall is here today. City of Columbia, longtime public servant in the Missful Association. Mr. Howard, we just appreciate your leadership and everything that you have done in that regard. Representative Seth Rose, Representative Micah Kasky, and then someone that I interact with a lot with this project because we're gathered over here on the Columbia side. But don't forget this river, this Congaree River, it actually joins Columbia and West Columbia. And I'm very pleased of all the constituents concerns that came forward. This is not a quiet project. We tried to make it as quiet as we could. But Senator Nikki Sessler, I appreciate you being here always a good friend, our eyes and ears in the community. And it really worked out well from that standpoint. There are two other people I want to recognize here as well. And that's Tom Effinger. I've had the privilege of working at with Tom Effinger at the company for over 35 years. We did the manufactured gas plant sites down in Charleston. He nobody I will tell you nobody on the environmental team or the construction team wanted to take this project on why because there was slim chance for success. And there was overwhelming odds of failure. But Tom took it on and took this special project on and there's nobody else that got enough gumption and guts to be able to do it about relationships. And then his boots on the ground Mr. Paul Barry, who was here every single day working with the various contractors and dealing with the constituents. And please let me be selfish by recommending about recognizing two of my own please give these gentlemen a round of applause. Finally, I just like to say it's the leadership of the great state of South Carolina and we've been blessed to have the longest serving governor in the history of South Carolina here with us. And his legacy that he will leave with South Carolina is not based upon the fact that he had all of those terms in those years in office. But what he did with those years in office, he always the economic development that he brought here to state has been tremendous. But he always has a heart for South Carolina and our natural resources and how we are blessed from the mountains to the sea. And it's my great privilege to introduce his Excellency, our governor, the Honorable Henry Dargan McMaster. By the way, that excellency that was written in the Constitution a long time ago. Kelly here and you talking and remind me about old Sherman throwing all that stuff in there. I don't know if the federal tort claims that goes back that far. Maybe the statute has run. But there's a there's a lesson in here and that is that it's easy to mess something up, but it's hard to clean it up. And here we are cleaning something up that was done probably inadvertently even without thinking everything went into the river way back in because water was water. The solution to pollution is dilution, I think they used to say. But but that is that's an important important lesson. And we have to be sure now that what we are everything we're doing is not missing something up so that somebody's got to clean it up later. A few years ago, I was up in the capital city club looking out over this area and the university and all the green and the rivers are converging there to form the concrete and all named after the old Indian tribes or Native Americans or original inhabitants, whatever they go way back. You know, they were here a long time before we were. But we were talking about that with I was with Christie Todd Whitman who was the head of the EPA years before under President Bush and it's been the governor of New Jersey for eight years as well. And as we were looking out over all this beautiful landscape and beautiful sky and the city growing down below us and all this water, I remember saying we really do have it all here in South Carolina. And she said now, Coach, as you do, I hope you don't mess it up. So I don't think we're messing it up. I think we've come to realize that our success and our prosperity and happiness depends on three what I call core things that the that the government is involved with. And that is education where we have some weak spots. But in order to fix it, you have to know what's broken. So we have some weak spots we're working on. And our economic growth, which is just booming. We had 10, almost 10.3 billion last year. We don't think we'll have that many this year, but we'll have more than we had any other year. But it's going on and on into other courses, our environment. And those are the three pillars. And they're all together. If you don't have one, if one is weak, the other two can't support it. It's like a three legged student. And I think more and more people are coming to realize how important this is. Now way back to Spanish and the French and all of them, when they were coming over all the explorers, they were going back to their sovereigns and saying that this place that today we call South Carolina, they call different things, was the most beautiful, most less place in all the new world. So just think of it, we're right here in the middle of this. Everyone's coming to the southeast where the sun shines. And it's always about the people and the people, of course, are one factor in the way the people are, of course, is their environment. But it's all tied together. So this really, I want to thank and congratulate everybody who was involved in this. It took a long time. Mr. Mayor, thank you for your work. Senator was always giving us advice and guidance and insight. And Kelly, you that's the biggest dirt move I ever saw. Don't ask Kelly to do something unless you want it done. Because he'll get it done for you can change your mind. But this is a great step and also again, it's a great lesson for us. Because we have there's no place more beautiful in our state of South Carolina. We ought to shout that from the rooftops and be sure to tell the children to always be proud of South Carolina. It's the best place in the world to live, work and raise a family. And we're right in the middle of it right now. So it's our turn. And by the way, if you got a good southern accent, hold on to it. That's worth about a million dollars right now. Thank you, Governor. I saw Representative Caskey show up. Thank you for being here and thank you for your leadership through this project, relaying the concerns of your constituents just like Senator Sessler was invaluable for us. And we appreciate your leadership in the House of Representatives. Thank you for being here. Well, I met him when he came in the office. I've known him long before that. But as mayor, it's been my privilege to kind of walk behind him and walk behind his vision for what he wants for Columbia to become. We had a recent press conference where we announced the leasing of about 2000 acre 200 acres excuse me, along the along the river that we can extend this riverwalk. And that was the dream of Mr Boyd. He said, Keller, I need y'all to finish this project so we can get this connectivity. You connect the river, you connect the walk, then you really connect the people. And that was his vision, a great vision he had and it hadn't been lost on our next speaker. It is going to be an exciting time for the Midlands going forward because of the exposure and cleanup of our natural resources, but also the vision of our mayor here in the great city of Columbia. The honorable Daniel recommend. It's always really hard to follow Keller and the governor, you know, but I'm gonna do my best. You know, this is this project is what you talk about collaboration. And for a long time, we had a negative connotation about not being collaborative. But what you're seeing happening across the Midlands is collaboration. It's West Columbia, Casey, city of Columbia, Blythewood, East over Irma, Blythewood coming all together to work together to do things in the Midlands, but the river has always been a passion. We've been talking about the river for so long about connectivity and how to bring it together. And this was a big part of it to have something done a year in advance. That's what you talk about collaboration. And I think it's incredible to have all these folks here. Obviously, you know, the governor's office involved Dominion Energy, DHEC, Army Corps of Engineers, City of Columbia, our staff in the back. We have our senior administrators all here. Henry Simons, Missy Gentry, I saw Clint Shealy the head of our utilities. Our whole team is here. And part of that is, is that because collaboration is how we're going to get things done. And we're so excited about cleaning it. This is one more piece. Skeller talked about the connectivity and the vision. Within the next decade, because we've got to wait on Carolina Crossroads to finish, you'll be able to get on, put on your tennis shoes or hop on a bike downtown Columbia and go all the way up to the dam and back. Stop at the zoo on your way, cross over to West Columbia with a new bridge that's coming in, take the back scene and maybe go, go visit these wings or something like that, even cross over and come across Elmwood and make your way across three, three historic neighborhoods and end up at Bull Street for a game, all without ever having to get on your, in your car. But opening up the river and the connectivity, something we've talked about for so long. This riverfront is the front is really the catalyst for Columbia because tourism, we get 16 million visitors in our community. We're giving them more opportunity to stay and take advantage. This past year, we had 24 economic development recruitment agents here and we got them on a Sunday in the state of South Carolina and had them right here in Columbia. So we took them on the river floating. We let them sample some good malted beverages from our local cereal factory and we also allowed them to have a great lunch on the riverfront. But what was incredible about it is those individuals got to see Columbia in a different light. They got to see these natural assets that we have. And the first thing that came out of each one of their mouths, why aren't you telling anybody about what you have? You need to share this. This is incredible and we're continuing to do that. But the opportunities are just opening. The 200 acres that we're working with Dominion opens up. This is the other connectivity piece but also the partnership with the Guignard's Association associates who own the 63 acres next to us right here opening up William Street, which we're so excited about after 23 years of talking about it, 15 years of trying to make it happen, it's going to happen. And it's going to be the catalyst that opens up something that everybody's going to be a proud of not only having development here, but having open space more access to the river, tying our community together. But without that, we would just be another city. So let's take advantage of what we have the collaboration, the partnerships, people working together. But this decade long cold tar cleanup being done ahead of schedule shows us what partnerships do. So let's keep working together to improve this community. Keller, thank you for your leadership. Because without you, we wouldn't be here today. Just a few housekeeping items here at the end. Thank you, governor, for being here today. Your time, your leadership. I want you to know it wasn't he's not a point and click person. He came out here several times to check on the progress and how it was going and how things were working. But just some facts, we hauled out 38,500 tons of sediment from this site, which is remarkable. And we did it in this very urban setting. And without these individuals here that you see before you, Representative Kasky, that would not have been possible. That constituent service of city council is so critical, important to stakeholders. So I just want to thank everybody for your role and your participation in this. We will, for the media, we'll meet over here to the right. If you all have further questions on specifics that you'd like to talk about from that standpoint. But this is truly team South Carolina coming together. We could not have done it alone. And we're just privileged to have these great partners all working for the benefit of the Palmetta state. You know, I look out behind us here today, and I've said it before, South Carolina, from the mountains to the sea. But today I kind of feel the Midlands is the place to be. Thank you and thank you for your attendance today.