10/25/07
Low Down
Lake levels affect recreation, livelihoods
By Jerriod Grizzle

Jerriod Grizzle/Manning Times

Boats normally moored at Pack’s Landing on Lake Marion are hard aground with no access to the open water. The historically low water levels are having a devastating effect on those who depend on the lake for their livelihoods.

Stumps stick up from beneath the water.

Mud flats sit where water once rose high.

Boats sit like plywood thrown on stocks.

It is not a bad movie, it’s a first hand account of what this reporter saw when he got the chance to tour Lake Marion.

This bleak reality has had an impact on everyone and everything around the area. Many lakefront stores have closed and will not reopen until next spring – or when the water rises, whichever one comes first.

Manning City Administrator, Rebecca Rhodes said that one of the things suffering right now are the various industries that depend on with the lake.

“Things like the housing market are suffering badly. Realtors have to make people imagine their boats on the lake and imagine the lake actually full,” she said.

Others, including a local shop owner Andy Pack, who operates Pack’s Landing, said the lake being this dry has put him on some hard times.

“I don’t know how I’m going to pay the bills. I had to lay off someone just last week from lack of business,” he said. “We have lost a lot from the drought.

The drought is not only affecting the lakefront stores but also the merchants that service them.

“It’s pretty bad around the whole of the eastern seaboard. I service the lakes and our sales are off by about 30 percent,” said Timmy Rogers, an independent bait supplier.

Rogers said that he hasn’t had to lay off anyone yet because of the way he sets up his operation but that the scene is the same wherever he goes to deliver bait.

“We service 100-125 bait shops and we have been able to keep up but it’s hard. I’ve seen river beds where you could walk on them and be standing on solid ground,” he said.

Locals in the Rimini area a little depressed looking at the lake. Jack Howard, a local who lives up the road from Pack’s Landing, sits on the dock smoking cigarettes.

“I’ve been here 36 years and I’ve never seen it this low. This is only the second time I’ve seen it come close to being this dry,” he said.

Howard said he did see a little light in the drought.

“Well, the duck weed has been a little bit of a problem around here and with this drought it is going to be killed from lack of water,” he said jokingly.

Howard just might be right about never seeing the lake this low. According to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, no one else has either.

“Right now the lake is the lowest that has ever been recorded,” said West Tyler, a climatologist with the SCDNR.

In the meantime, there does not seem to be many options for residents except to wait it out.

“Really the only option is to pray and wait for rain. It has to rain upstream to fill the lake here,” said Larry McCord, supervisor with the Analytical and Biological Services Division of Santee Cooper.

McCord said that Santee Cooper, who controls the lake, is mandated to release 5,000 cubic feet per second per day for the production of hydroelectric power. At the this time, the lake is only receiving 2,000 cubic feet per second per day from upstream tributaries and watersheds. The normal level is 10,000 cubic feet per second per day.

Forecasters promise rain coming in the near future, but both McCord and Tyler state that the promise may be filled with false hope.

“If it doesn’t rain in the Wateree Catawba river basin and/or the Broad Saluda Congaree river basin, then it won’t it won’t fill up any time soon,” Tyler noted. “All of those (river basins) filling up have a heavy impact on the level,” he said.

From fishing guides to tourists, the state of Lake Marion could have a long lasting effect on the local economy.

What is considered the jewel in the crown of Clarendon County has taken on an ugly – and frightening – tarnish.