COLUMBIA, S.C.
Now that S.C. regulators have given the green light to Dominion Energy to buy SCANA, more than electric rates are at stake.
Dominion will assume responsibility for overseeing the Midlands’ huge Lake Murray and its hydroelectric dam, including managing the lake’s water level, a public beach and dock permits.
The Virginia-based utility also will have a say in how the lake’s shoreline is developed and maintained, and it could give up ownership of 45 acres of undeveloped land on the lake.
However, Lake Murray would not be the first huge lake managed by Dominion, which oversees similar lakes in Virginia and North Carolina, where a residents’ group gives the utility high marks for its stewardship.
Both Dominion and SCE&G, as well as a Lake Murray watchdog group, say Midlands residents should not be concerned by the change in ownership.
Dominion will manage Lake Murray the same way the lake always has been overseen, leaving its operations in the hands of SCANA subsidiary SCE&G, Dominion spokesman Ryan Frazier said.
SCANA spokesman Eric Boomhower added the utility has “been given no indication (from Dominion) that completion of the merger will lead to any significant changes” in how the utility manages the lake.
The closing of Dominion’s buyout of SCANA also will not change the requirement that the utility comply with a shoreline management plan and other aspects of a federal operating license for Lake Murray and its dam, he said.
Lake Murray Dam
SCE&G still is awaiting approval of its application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for relicensing of the dam, formally known as the Saluda Hydroelectric Project. A related, comprehensive settlement agreement was filed in 2009, with various environmental and interest groups signing on as party to that agreement.
The license governs a broad array of issues, including lake levels, how much water is released downstream into the Saluda River, recreation, and fish and wildlife management.
“That can’t change without federal review, and I don’t think Dominion would want to mess with that,” said Steve Bell, a founder of Lake Murray Watch, a 450-member lake watchdog group. “That’s pretty much set in stone.”
Reaching that agreement “took three years of meetings with stakeholders, and it’s a good license for the lake and Midlands stakeholders,” Bell said. “I don’t think Dominion will come in here and mess up anything related to the lake. I think there are people out there, not sure what’s going to happen, because they don’t understand the federal license that’s in place.”
Pine Island retreat won’t be sold
The roughly 50,000-acre reservoir, created in the 1920s, has become a popular playground for the Midlands. Today, thousands of homes and docks also line what once was a forested shoreline.
Dave Landis, president of the Lake Murray Association, too, said property owners have little to be worried about.
“Meeting with both SCE&G and Dominion, we feel confident they’re going to continue to manage the lake as they have been,” Landis said. “I don’t see any major changes of the daily operation of the lake, lake levels and water quality. Some areas of concern are the lands that are owned by SCANA around the lake.”
The Cayce-based utility plans to offload several properties as part of a settlement to refund a fraction of the $2 billion that SCE&G’s 730,000 electric customers already have paid for two unfinished nuclear reactors that the utility abandoned in 2017.
Pine Island, a SCE&G recreation area on Lake Murray, will not be sold as part of that settlement, according to Dominion’s Frazier.
But attorneys representing SCE&G customers could choose to swap some land, now included in the deal, for other nonessential SCANA properties, including 45 acres of undeveloped land off Lake Murray’s Lake Tide Road, valued at $350,000.
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‘They’ve done a good job’
Dominion already oversees lakes in Virginia and North Carolina, including the 20,300-acre Lake Gaston, a popular recreational destination on the Virginia-North Carolina border that — like Lake Murray — also produces hydroelectric power.
“They’re very cooperative, and they’ve done a good job,” Wally Sayko, chairman of environment committee of the Lake Gaston Association, said of Dominion.
Sayko credits Dominion for staying with its federal licensing requirements for the lake and adopting an ecologically responsible shoreline management plan.
“They do put forth, we think, a strong effort on the ecology (front), working with us” on re-establishing native vegetation around the lake, controlling invasive weeds and regulating water flow, Sayko said.
https://www.thestate.com/news/politi...223263400.html
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