User:Lionel555/sandbox/Lake Keowee

Lake Keowee is a lake located in the upper west part of South Carolina. It is an artificial lake, made by damming 2 rivers and is used to create hydroelectric power and to cool the Oconee Nuclear Station, in Oconee County, SC.

History
Lake Keowee is an artificial lake, created by the Duke Power Company in 1971. It was made to generate hydroelectric power to a large radius of the surrounding area. It was the lake made as part of Duke Energy’s Keowee-Toxaway Complex.

Before Keowee was a lake, it was Keowee River. In the time of the Cherokee being still populated in the area, Keowee town was the capital of Eastern or Lower Cherokees. In the 1753, when white settlers came from Europe, a fort, named Fort Prince George was built across the river from Keowee Town. Duke Energy and the University of South Carolina teamed up and found 39 excavation sites of the fort. A participant in the dig built a model of an excavation site that is now in the Keowee-Toxaway State Park. Keowee Town was another excavation site, and thousands of artifacts were found there, things like pottery beads, and human and animal remains.

Land purchases along the river began in 1963, and South Carolina Land & Timber was formed for the specific purpose of "acquiring, holding, and developing land and timber properties". The named was later changed in 1966 to Crescent Land and Timber.

On January 2, 1965, current Duke Energy president W. B. McGuire held a press conference at Clemson House, on the Clemson University campus, and announced Duke Energy's intentions of building a large complex to generate power, which would be called the Keowee-Toxaway project, and would cost an estimated 700 million dollars. On January 4, Duke filled for liscence to build the first phase of construction.

In the first phase on construction, dams would be built on the Keowee and Little rivers to create Lake Keowee and the Jocassee river would be dammed to create Lake Jocassee. This would cost an estimated 83 million dollars. In July of 1966, Duke energy placed one of the largest orders for land clearing ever given in either South or North Carolina. The order was given to Jeff Hunt Machinery Company, to clear the basins for the new Lake Keowee and Jocassee sites. Duke then granted the order of earth-moving to Blythe Brothers and Clement Brothers companies, and they would begin in 1967. At the official groundbreaking, a red, white, and blue dynamite charge was set off by then SC governor Robert McNair in April of 1967. Lake Keowee would be formed by putting together the Keowee and Little rivers.

The Lake Keowee dam is the longest of the three dams. Approximately, it is 3500 feet long, 800 feet wide at its base, and 20 feet wide at the very top. It is 20 feet higher than the Little River dam, but 215 feet lower than the Jocassee dam. The Keowee dam contains 2 hydroelectric generating units, capable of generating 40 megawatts. Roughly, 2.4 megawatts can power 420 homes, as proven by a Tuscon power company in 2003 using solar energy.

Keowee's tunnel for transporting water is 800 feet long and 33.5 feet wide. It can contain a maximum of 5.3 million gallons of water at a time, with an average flow rate of 1000 cubic feet per second.

To cool the plant, the Oconee skimmer wall was built into the lake. The wall separates the plant's inlet canal from the lake itself. The skimmer wall does not go all the way to be bottom of the lake. This is a design that allows cool lake water to come through the bottom to cool parts of the plant that need it. The lake is about 150 feet deep where the skimmer is.

The Lake Jocassee hydro station feeds water into Lake Keowee. The initial transfer of water began in December 1973, and commercial operation began on December 19, 1973.

Duke Energy closed the gates of the Keowee dam on April 2, 1970, to being the final phase of impouding the lake the reach the ultimate depth of 150 feet and to create the lake. The Keowee hydro station was then completed and began its commercial operation on April 17, 1971.

The Oconee Nuclear Site was completed and began its operation in 1973, and has currently generated more electricity than any other site in the nation.

Geography/Locations Around the Lake
The Lake is predominately located in Oconee, which is the most upper west county in the state of South Carolina, and it also extends somewhat into Pickens county, which is directly east and adjacent to Oconee county.

Campgrounds: There is the 1,000 acre Keowee-Toxaway State Park. Created in partnership of Duke Energy and South Carolina. Its separated into three different parks, 155-acre Mile Creek Park, 40-acre South Cove Park, 44-acre High Falls Park. There is another 373 acres, which is called Eastotoe Park, which is monitored by the SCDNR for management as a natural area. Duke Energy also has created six additional boat access slips.

Local Major Cities and distances away: Charleston, SC: 250; Columbia, SC: 136; Florence, SC: 217; Greenville, SC: 35; Charlotte, NC: 127; Raleigh, NC: 269; Atlanta, GA: 145; Augusta, GA: 135; Savannah, GA: 247

Education: Oconee and Pickens counties

Local Elementary schools of: Blue Ridge Elementary, Fair-Oak Elementary, James M Brown, Keowee Elementary, North Side Elementary, Oakway Intermediate, Orchard Park Elementary, Ravenel Elementary, Tamassee-Salem Elementary, Walhalla Elementary, Westminster Elementary, Ambler Elementary School, Central Elementary, Chastain Road Elementary, Clemson Elementary, Crosswell Elementary, Dacusville Elementary, East End Elementary, Forest Acres Elementary, Hagood Elementary, Holly Springs Elementary, A.R. Lewis Elementary, Liberty Elementary, McKissick Elementary, Pickens Elementary, Six Mile Elementary, West End Elementary.

Middle Schools: Seneca, Walhalla, West-Oak, Dacusville, Edwards, Gettys, Liberty, Pickens.

High Schools: Seneca, Tamassee-Salem Middle/High, Walhalla, West-Oak, Daniel, Easley, Liberty, Pickens.

Colleges/Universities: Clemson University, Tri-County Technical College, Anderson University.

Lake Features
Lake Keowee’s waters cover approximately 18,500 acres and there is 300 miles of shoreline. The full water elevation of Lake Keowee is around 800 feet. It is 23 miles long and 3 miles wide at the widest point. There is an average depth of 54 feet. The lake also serves to give drinking water to the Greenville and Seneca areas around the lake.

Living On The Lake/Socioeconomic
Lake Keowee provides a marina for residents that live on the lake or residents in the area. The Lake Keowee Marina provides a gas station for boats, boat slip rentals for boats, dry storage areas, and a boat store, where one could actually buy a boat. They also have a boat wash and wax service and a mechanic service year round, even when winter is around to keep citizens boats in good condition while they do not run.

Duke Energy & Oconee Nuclear Station


Duke Energy

Oconee Nuclear Station is located on Lake Keowee in South Carolina, about 8 miles for the city of Seneca, in Oconee County. Since its completion, the station has created more than 500 million megawatt-hours worth of electricity, the very first nuclear station in the country to achieve this. It has a generating capacity of 2.6 million kilowatts of power, which is enough to power 1.9 million homes. The site had the distinction of having is licenses renewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) NRC for an additional 20 years of service.

Duke Energy controls the lake very much. In the summer of 2011, Duke Energy talked of changes to nuclear station pumps to allow for more flexibility in changing Lake Keowee's levels when there were dry spells and droughts in the area. The change was requested by the Army Corps of Engineers.

FOLKS
There is a society for the lake, founded by the citizens around it. FOLKS is the Friends Of Lake Keowee Society. It was established in 1993 to focus peoples attention on the importance of Lake Keowee and its economical and recreation affects on its surrounding areas.

FOLKS has a program that lets citizens adopt an island, which is called the Island Keeper Program. This is in place to keep islands clean, and make island sweeps to keep trash off of the islands. Littering is a very large problem Lake Keowee has on the islands it has. Duke Energy will soon post signs all around lake access points for boats that will give day-use rules for the lake.