Lake Wateree Covekeepers                    New Home Owner Welcome Letter

Welcome to Lake Wateree!

We think Lake Wateree is a very special place and are happy you have joined our community.

As a new property owner, I am sure you want the lake environment in which you have invested to remain beautiful and healthy for years to come. To ensure that is the case, the lake needs your help. Those of us fortunate enough to live along this lake’s shoreline have an added responsibility in protecting the scene we enjoy daily and the water we value for drinking, boating, swimming, and fishing.

Most shoreline residents would not knowingly pollute the water along which they live.  Yet without realizing it, lakeshore lots release a variety of substances that can degrade water quality:

• The clearing of land to build houses bares soil and can send sediments downslope to cloud the water and stress aquatic life. Please ensure that properly installed silt fences are in place when excavations are being done on your lot.
• Driveways can also be a source of sediment and of noxious chemicals such as gas, oil, antifreeze, detergent and toxic metals.
• Inadequately maintained septic systems eventually release bacteria that may endanger swimmers, as well as plant nutrients that foul waters with green scum of excess algal growth.
• Lawns and gardens often release contaminants from fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Lawn maintenance may introduce grass clippings or soil into the lake.

Taking care not to discharge harmful substances or to cause soil erosion is the most effective step in caring for a lake; surrounding it with a protective barrier to contain contaminated runoff and sediment is an important secondary precaution. Vegetation is nature’s protective barrier, a natural way to protect our water. 

The problem is that very little natural shoreline vegetation still remains in place.  When it comes to protecting water quality, the shoreline serves as a critical last line of defense.  Fortunately there are plenty of positive steps we can take, starting in our own backyard, to enhance water quality. Better yet, many of these practices can also save time and expense in the long run while providing attractive surroundings and fostering native plants and wildlife.

If you are fortunate enough to have natural vegetation on your shoreline, take steps to protect it.  If it has been destroyed by previous owners, or will be damaged during dock construction or shoreline stabilization projects, let it grow back, or replace it with additional native plant materials.

In addition to protecting water quality, a diversity of native plants along the shoreline provides important food and shelter, and travel paths for wildlife, part of nature’s beauty that attracted many of us to the shoreline in the first place.  Native plants are “from here” so they require no special pampering to take hold and thrive.  Nothing compares to undisturbed native vegetation along the shoreline when it comes to protecting our water from sediments and chemicals.

Shoreline residents everywhere are learning the benefits of establishing or maintaining vegetative buffers along the water’s edge. Those who live along the shoreline of a lake can effect its water quality most immediately – and will also feel most directly the effects of others activities throughout the entire river basin.

Again, welcome to Lake Wateree. We hope you will enjoy it, treasure it and along the way, protect it.

This welcome comes from the Lake Wateree Covekeepers, a group of volunteers around the lake who monitor the shoreline for issues that could impair our waters and help with education about best practices along the shoreline. 

 The Covekeepers were trained by the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation. We are led by Lake Wateree Lakekeepers Becky McSwain(803-337-3591, 299 Tallow Road, Ridgeway, SC 29130) and Sarah Williams(803-432-8907, 408 Chewning St. Camden, SC 29020).