Saluda-Reedy Watershed Consortium Project History

The Saluda-Reedy Watershed Consortium was born out of a sense that something was wrong with Lake Greenwood — and that it was time to do something about it. It started in 1999, when Lake Greenwood was suddenly plagued with floating mats of algae. This dramatic manifestation of a presumed long-term decline in water quality was a source of great alarm among leaders of the Lakelands community. The V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation (VKRF) took notice, and decided to make an investment in a solution.

In 2001, Charles Schulze of Greenwood (an advisor to the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation) initiated a conversation with representatives of Upstate Forever, Clemson University and Pinnacle Consulting, Inc. about how best to address the water quality challenges facing the lake. The product of these conversations was a draft proposal submitted in August 2002 to VKRF for five years of funding for the Saluda-Reedy Watershed Consortium. VKRF retained the services of Dr. Upmanu Lall to work with the Consortium in revising and strengthening the proposal. A final proposal was submitted to VKRF in November 2002. Around this same time, Fuji Photo Film expressed an interest in supporting the project. In March 2003, two major grants were announced: A $500,000 grant from Fuji over five years (2003 to 2007) and a $1 million grant from VKRF over two years (2003 and 2004). These funds have served as the nucleus of a major effort to change the relationship between people and water in the Saluda-Reedy watershed. In 2005, an additional $1 million grant was awarded to the Consortium by VKRF for continuing efforts in watershed research and advocacy projects.

From the start, the focus of the project has been on integrated watershed conservation and management. This approach to water quality problems recognizes the interconnectedness of political decision-making structures and environmental quality, and works to generate improvement in key indicators of watershed health by promoting strategic changes in watershed governance. Our original proposal set forth integrated watershed conservation and management as a core strategy, building all of our data collection and modeling, policy analysis, and outreach around this central concept. All our activities since that point have been directed towards developing and implementing a model for integrated watershed conservation and management.

Field work has been ongoing since late 2003, and was concentrated initially on the information gathering and analysis that constitutes the first phase of any project of this scale. One of our first tasks was to develop and refine a comprehensive database of spatially referenced information on water quality and related issues (flow levels, rainfall data, and other parameters of concern). We also began work almost immediately on a land use change model, as well as an economic model of the distribution of costs and benefits of water pollution. In addition, we launched a series of applied research projects — quantification of sedimentation in major impoundments throughout the watershed, a water budget that takes into account all discharges to and withdrawals from the system, and a mapping effort aimed at identifying areas around Lake Greenwood with a high likelihood of septic system failure, to mention just a few — each of which was intended to serve as the basis for specific outreach efforts and policy recommendations. Together, these research projects provide a foundation of sound science on which to build a broad array of policy and outreach efforts.

As our understanding of status and trends in the watershed began to take shape, we broadened our work to include outreach and education. Given our focus on political decision-making structures, all our outreach work has been targeted — directly or indirectly — at watershed leaders: local elected officials, agency directors, developers, prominent businesspeople, key media representatives, and others whose daily decisions have a significant impact on some aspect of watershed management. With this diverse set of audiences in mind, we have recruited prominent members of the local government and business communities to serve on an advisory council, launched a series of intensive workshops for watershed leaders, organized a major conference on the impacts and control of erosion, distributed a press kit and placed op-eds in key local papers, and undertaken a variety of other, complementary strategies whose common goal is raising the profile of watershed conservation among people who are in a position to do something about water quality.

In summary, grants of $2 million from VKRF combined with $500,000 in funding from Fuji Photo Film Inc. enabled the project team to lay the groundwork for and begin implementation of a powerful program for improving water quality in the Saluda-Reedy Watershed.