The village of Conestee lies a few miles south of Greeville on the Reedy River.  In the 1800's it was a thriving mill town; it even had electricity before the city of Greenville.  The Mill's dam was build across the Reedy Riverin 1892, creating the empoundment called "Lake Conestee" which now lies directly behind the right field fence of G-Braves Stadium on Mauldin Road.  Lake "Co-Nasty" has trapped the effluent from Greenville for over 100 years.  This includes a variety of heavy metals and other toxins used in the textile and finishing industries of the area, as well as discharge from the Mauldin Road Water Treatment Facility directly upstream.  In the late 1990's, debris that had been clogging the Mill's shunt through the dam was eroded, and the lake emptied.  The Reedy began cutting a new channel through the accumulated sediment, remobilizing the potentially harmful toxins.  The Conestee Foundation was formed, the lake was purchased, and a cap was placed over the shunt.  The Foundation would like to purchase the surrounding land and create an environmental park - remediating this site and creating an an environmental learning center where school children would come and learn how human impacts can affect the integrity of the environmental systems upon which we depend.

On December 6, 2003, four members of Furman's student group EAG (Environmental Action Group) and two faculty picked up trash for a few hours on the border property around the lake.  We collected over 400 pounds of trash, including five tires, a palette, plywood, a cah register, and ten bags of garbage.  It wasn't much, but it was a good haul for six people in two hours time!

Pictures are below: