Preserving the lake

Water quality booklet serves as ‘call to action,’ official says

February 21, 2006

By VIC MacDONALD
Index-Journal regional editor

Armed with scientific data, people who want to preserve the water quality in the Saluda-Reedy Watershed and Lake Greenwood are embarking on the next phase of their campaign, informing public officials of laws and policies needed to protect the water.
They are mailing copies of the booklet “From the Blue Wall to Lake Greenwood, the Saluda-Reedy Watershed is our home” to elected officials throughout the watershed area and meeting with the editorial boards of the region’s news organizations. Brad Wyche, executive director of Upstate Forever, and Jennifer Rennicks, watershed project coordinator for the organization, discussed watershed issues Monday with editors at The Index-Journal.
The booklet was made available to attendees at the Watershed Leaders Forum 2 Feb. 14 at the Drummond Center, Lake Greenwood State Recreation Area.
The booklet, providing the “State of the Watershed Report 2005,” summarizes 2 1/2 years of scientific research into the status of the Saluda-Reedy Watershed that drains into Lake Greenwood, and the water quality of both the watershed and the lake. That data now will “lay the groundwork for change,” Wyche said. “We’re even more engaged now than at the beginning,” Wyche said of Upstate Forever’s work in support of the Saluda-Reedy Watershed Consortium. Encompassing nearly 1,400 miles of streams, ranging in size from small creeks to the Saluda River, the watershed extends 80 miles from its headwaters along the N.C-S.C. state line to the Buzzard Roost dam that forms Lake Greenwood.
Eighteen towns and communities and seven counties are included in the watershed. The Upstate area is home to more than a third of a million people, the booklet says.
Closer to home, the watershed’s streams and rivers feed Lake Greenwood, which is owned by Greenwood County and provides the drinking water for the City of Greenwood.
Wyche said cooperation in water conservation from counties north of Greenwood is vital to the preservation of Lake Greenwood, and encouraging signs have come from Greenville County. But, he added, the watershed report includes steps that need to be taken in Greenwood, Laurens and Newberry counties, also, to ensure that the watershed is free from sediment and pollution.
“The number one challenge is sediment,” Wyche said. “Our regulatory system for sediment and erosion, the statewide regulation, is very weak.”
Silt fences required of housing, commercial and other developers still, legally, allow 20 percent of the sediment to flow into waterways, Wyche said. Tightening these regulations on development, especially upstream from Lake Greenwood, is a main target area for Upstate Forever and other water quality preservation organizations.
“This must be a statewide effort,” Wyche said. “People have been talking about it for years.” Rennicks said, to date, 2 billion gallons of water storage capacity has been lost in the Saluda-Reedy Watershed because of sediment, and that is a 2000 figure, meaning the situation has continued to get worse in the last six years.
“Across the whole lake (Lake Greenwood), it’s becoming more shallow,” Wyche said. “There’s so much sediment in there now, more than 300 acres, you would have to dredge to remove a significant amount of sediment.” “It’s not enough to say ‘We have a problem.’ We need to identify the places we can make a difference,” Rennicks said.
To that end, forums are planned in Pickens and Greenville counties to come up with ways developers can capture runoff water from their sites and prevent it from draining into streams. Other practices to be examined are street widths and parking lots paving, since any hard surface put on the ground increases the amount of runoff water from rain and other activities that cause water to flow into storm drains or streams.
Upstate Forever and the Saluda-Reedy Watershed Consortium are seeking ideas from their affiliate members, from an advisory council of 30 people, and from a database of more than 1,300 people who get regular updates of water quality-related activities.
“The focus now is on the clean-up, changing rules and regulations,” Wyche said. “We want to change the rules, for erosion and sediment control, for runoff water from parking lots. We’re saying to developers, ‘No sediment is allowed to leave your site. ... We’ll let you figure out how to get that done.’ Because all that (runoff water) is getting into our waterways and causing problems downstream.
“This needs to be a top (development) priority. Erosion control and sediment are an after-thought. It needs to be a priority.”
For in-depth information on water quality issues, visit the Web site www.saludareedy.org/sotw.html and click on topics that include “land use,” “sediment and nutrients,” “reservoir sedimentation,” “Lake Greenwood model,” and “erosion prevention.”

Area teams strive to continue season

February 21, 2006

By CHRIS TRAINOR
Index-Journal sports writer

Two Lakelands area girls basketball teams will have the opportunity to make a mark in the state playoffs tonight.
The Emerald and McCormick high school teams will participate in Upper State semifinal action, the Lady Vikings in the Class AA playoffs and the Lady Chiefs in the A playoffs. A victory by either team would send them to the Upper State championship game.
The Lady Vikings, the No. 1 seed from Region III-AA face Region IV-AA No. 1 seed Swansea at 7 p.m. at Swansea High School, while Region I-A champion McCormick plays Region II-A No. 1 seed Christ Church at 7 p.m. at Clinton High School.
Each team will be striving for personal goals when they hit the court.
Emerald is looking to advance past the third round for the first time in the history of its girls basketball program.
“It would be great for this program to advance,” Emerald coach Anarie Duckett said. “We’ve never been past the third round. Our girls know how important this game is.”
McCormick coach George Edwards said his team has made its goal clear all season.
“They want to make it to state,” Edwards said. “These girls have said all year they want to make it to the finals in Columbia.”
Emerald will look to attack the Lady Tigers by utilizing the scoring prowess of center Elizabeth Nicholson and forward Brittany Connor.
Nicholson and Connor have formed an effective inside-outside duo throughout the season. Nicholson is averaging 20.5 points per game in the playoffs, while Connor is averaging 14 points per postseason contest. Duckett said Swansea will be a formidable opponent.
“They aren’t that big, so we should have an advantage there,” Duckett said. “But they are really quick and they are aggressive. They earned their number one seed.”
The Lady Chiefs will look to force the tempo of their game against the Lady Cavaliers.
It will be a match-up of team with conflicting styles of play. McCormick utilizes high-pressure defense and a run-and-gun philosophy on offense, oftentimes turning steals into easy baskets on the other end.
Christ Church, meanwhile, likes to slow the ball down, often holding the ball for more than a minute before attempting a shot.
Edwards said the Lady Chiefs will need to be patient throughout tonight’s game.
“Our girls need to stay calm, especially if (Christ Church) gets a little lead,” Edwards said.
“We can’t run down there and throw up a 3-pointer, thinking we’re going to make it all back up with one shot.”
One thing that doesn’t seem to bother either team is the prospect of playing their third round game away from home.
“There’s not really anything different we’ll do,” Duckett said.
“We’re happy to be where we are and have a chance to advance.”
Edwards shared Duckett’s sentiment.
“It suits me fine to be at a neutral site,” Edwards said.
“The girls focus better that way sometimes. They think about the game and not about the crowd.”

Chris Trainor covers area sports for The Index-Journal. He can be reached at: ctrainor@indexjournal.com

Opinion

Aren’t smaller newspapers also considered the media?

February 21, 2006

Was there a bit of snobbery exhibited by the big city newspapers and television networks when they weren’t the first to be notified of the hunting accident that involved Vice President Dick Cheney? The evidence would suggest yes.
The whole thing could have been handled better, no doubt about it. It would have been best all around had information surrounding the accidental shooting been distributed by the Cheney people faster than they did. That should be a hard lesson learned. When the president or vice president is involved in any kind of accident it’s news. It should have been treated thusly, but obviously was not.
That doesn’t mean, to be sure, that the press was not notified. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times was notified and, through that local newspaper, so was the public.
Where is it written that anyone in government should notify the big newspapers when anything happens.

WHY IS IT SO TERRIBLE when a smaller newspaper is first to get a story? Are small papers not part of the media? Do the “big boys” look down their collective noses at papers like the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, The Index-Journal, or the Abbeville Press and Banner?
No, it indeed appeared to be a matter of self-proclaimed importance that caused the “major” media to complain because no one called them first.
As far as the delay between the time of the accident and when it was made public, it’s a two-way street. Many South Carolinians remember well how long it took for Senator Edward (Teddy) Kennedy’s people to tell the world that one of his staff members, Mary JO Kopechne, had drowned in his automobile when he ran off a road into the water at Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts ..... while the senator got safely away and waited for several hours.
Is there a double-standard at play? Of course there is. If a delay was OK in one instance, why was it not so in another ...... especially when there was a death in one and not the other?

IT’S OBVIOUS THERE ARE times when everything depends on who is involved, Republican, Democrat, Independent or anything else. The same rules should apply to all. No one has a corner on hypocrisy, of course.
Maybe we all have learned a hard lesson in the Cheney situation. Be up front and do it promptly. Politics being what it is, though, especially these days when hatred seems to hold sway over tolerance and reason, there’s no assurance that other incidents in the future will be handled differently, regardless of the party affiliation.
There’s is a political divide in this country that is threat to the very stability of our way of governing ourselves. Unless cooler heads prevail and eliminate the bitterness and rancor that seem to surround everything political, whether in South Carolina or anywhere else, it may get worse. In a troubled world where terrorists would love to see us devour ourselves, that’s something we cannot afford.

Obituaries

Ray Goforth

NINETY SIX — Ray Conrad Goforth, 72, of 108 Park St., husband of Jane Thomason Goforth, died Monday, Feb. 20, 2006 at Richard M. Campbell VA Nursing Home in Anderson.
Born in Grover, N.C., he was a son of the late Preston and Lena Welch Goforth. He was a graduate of Blacksburg High School, a 1957 graduate of The University of South Carolina, an Air Force veteran and a member of Greenwood Masonic Lodge No. 91, AFM, Hejaz Shrine Temple, Greenwood Shrine Club, Ninety Six Lions Club, American Legion Post No. 103, Sons of the American Revolution, Greenwood Historical Society, Gamecock Club and former president of Lander Senator Booster Club. He was a former member of Greenwood Jaycees and Heritage Sertoma Club. A co-founder and former co-publisher of the Ninety Six Star & Beacon, he was an organizer and former fire fighter with Northwest Volunteer Fire Department. He was an agent and former Columbus, Ga., district manager for Independent Life Insurance Co., retiring from the company in Greenwood. A member and former deacon and elder of First Presbyterian Church of Greenwood, he was also a former president of the Men of the Church of the Synod of the South Atlantic. He was twice married, first to the late Janet Paige Goforth.
Surviving include his wife of the home; a son, Donald Goforth of Greenwood; a daughter, Susanne G. Smith of Lexington; two stepdaughters, Kelly Riddle of Waterloo and Mary Jane Vail of Columbia; two stepsons, Jeffrey Vail of Daytona, Fla., and Scott Vail of Ninety Six; a brother, Dr. Cobia Dwight Goforth of Grover; three grandchildren; four step-grandchildren.
Services are 11 a.m. Wednesday at First Presbyterian Church of Greenwood, conducted by the Revs. Dr. John Livingston and Dave Mayo. Burial is 4 p.m. Wednesday in Grover City Cemetery, Grover, N.C., conducted by the Rev. Nancy Mugford.
Visitation is 10-11 Wednesday at the church.
The families are at their respective homes.
Memorials may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, Upstate SC Chapter, 521 N. McDuffie Street, Anderson, SC 29621.
Blyth Funeral Home & Cremation Services is in charge Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.blythfuneralhome.com

George Wesley King Jr.

SALUDA — George Wesley King Jr., 67, of 2526 Hollywood Road, died Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006 at Self Regional Medical Center in Greenwood.
Born in Saluda, he was a son of the late George W. King Sr. and Fannie Farrow King. He was a member of Mount Enon Baptist Church and the Sons of Aide and a retired farm worker.
Survivors include two sons, Raleigh Robinson of Ware Shoals and George Robinson of Ridge Spring; a sister, Corine Smith of Saluda; several grandchildren.
Services are 2 p.m. Wednesday at Mount Enon Baptist Church, conducted by the Rev. Johnny C. Gantt. Burial is in the church cemetery.
Pallbearers are nephews.
Flower bearers are nieces.
The family is at the home of a niece, Doris Nicholson, 124 Twisted Hill Court, Saluda.
Butler and Sons Funeral Home is in charge.

Jules C. Mars

Jules C. Mars, 88, of 310 E. Sproles Ave., died Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006 at Hospice House of the Piedmont.
Born in Abbeville, he was a Realtor, entrepreneur and of the Interdenominational Faith.
Services are 2 p.m. Wednesday at Holy Tabernacle Deliverance Ministries, conducted by Minister Chester Miller. The body will be placed in the church at 1 p.m. Burial is in Oakbrook Memorial Park.
Pallbearers and flower bearers are friends of the family.
Visitation is 7-8 tonight at Abbeville & White Mortuary.
The family is at the home of Minister Joanne Miller, 126 Westwood St., Abbeville.
Abbeville & White Mortuary Inc. is in charge.

Eoline C. Waites

Eoline Cann Waites, 88, formerly of Greenwood, widow of W.F. Waites, died Monday, Feb. 20, 2006 at Anne Maria Nursing Home, North Augusta.
The family is at the home of a daughter, Delores Summey, 107 Siloam Acres.
Services will be announced by Harley Funeral Home & Crematory.