Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes are located downstream of Fishing Creek Lake in Chester, Lancaster, and Fairfield counties, South Carolina. Great Falls Lake has a surface area of about 477 acres and about 20 shoreline miles at a full pond elevation of 355.8 feet msl. Rocky Creek Lake has a surface area of about 847 acres and about 20 shoreline miles at full pond elevation of 284.4 feet msl. See Table 4.9-1 for the shoreline classification for Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes.

There are two developed Duke Power owned public recreation access locations on Rocky Creek Lake and no public access to Great Falls Lake (see Figure 4.9-1). There are no public commercial non-residential or commercial residential marinas, and no private piers on Great Falls or Rocky Creek Lakes.

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Existing Duke-Owned Public Access Areas

The developed Duke-owned public access areas provide 21.3 acres and about 2,046 feet of shoreline frontage of public access on Rocky Creek Lake and none on Great Falls Lake. Combined, the developed access areas have 2 public boat ramps and about 43 parking spaces. Table 4.9-2 summarizes the facilities at the public access areas.

Click Here to View Full Figure 4.9-1 Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes Public Recreation Access Areas

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Site Specific Descriptions of Existing Duke-owned Public Access Areas at
Rocky Creek Lake

The following section provides a description of each Duke-owned public access area on Rocky Creek Lake (there are no Duke-owned public access areas on Great Falls Lake), including a photograph, site characterisitics, site recreation facilities, and key recreation activities.

Stumpy Pond Access Area

The Stumpy Pond access area is located in the lower portion of Rocky Creek Lake along the eastern shoreline, in Lancaster County, South Carolina. Table 4.9-3 summarizes key site characteristics for the Stumpy Pond access area.

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Debutary Creek Access Area

The Debutary Creek access area is located in the lower portion of Rocky Creek Lake in Fairfield County, South Carolina. Table 4.9-4 summarizes key site characteristics for the Debutary Creek access area.

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Recreation Use

Visitation at the public access areas on Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes was derived based on estimates of the traffic entering the Duke-owned public access areas. Total estimated visitation during the 1999 study period for Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes at these sites was about 23,447 visits. Figure 4.9-4 shows the distribution of the visitation for each month at Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes for the Duke-owned public access areas during the 1999 study period. A visit is considered a vehicle or vehicle/trailer entering the site for any part of a day.

Table 4.9-5 provides a summary of the estimated recreation visitation based on the traffic counter data for the sampled sites during the 1999 study period. There are no private piers on Great Falls or Rocky Creek Lakes. Therefore, the total visitation estimate is based on the visitation at the public access areas that was estimated at 23,447 visits.

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Spot counts were conducted at two sites for Rocky Creek Lake, Debutary, and Stumpy Pond Access areas. Table 4.9-6 lists the number of sample days per month for the spot count data collection.

The total number of surveys received for each survey is listed in Table 4.9-7. Survey D was conducted of marina operators, therefore numbers of surveys sent and received were low. Figure 4.9-5 shows the distribution of recreation activity type for Survey C. No respondents to Surveys A (there are no residences on either lake) and B provided any comments on Great Falls or Rocky Creek Lakes. Figure 4.9-6 shows the distribution of recreation activity type combining data from Surveys C, spot counts and tailrace counts. Based on the combined data sources, the primary recreation activities for Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes during the 1999 study period were boat fishing and bank/pier fishing. No respondents indicated they recreated on the islands. For Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes, the average party size (average number of recreators in each party) for respondents to Survey C was 2.5 people. The average length of stay for Survey C respondents was 4.7 hours, and the average number of visits was 26.4 annually.

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Table 4.9-8 summarizes the perceived crowding ratings for Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes for Survey C responses. Recreators on Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes indicated that weekday and weekend crowding was low-range (on a scale of 1 to 5). There were no Survey D responses to the crowding ratings on Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes. The lake rescue and management groups were asked for crowding ratings only for the higher use lakes within the Catawba-Wateree system, including James, Hickory, Norman , Wylie and Wateree.

*Weighted Average

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Boating Use

Figure 4.9-7 shows the distribution of boating activity type for Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes based on Survey C comparing the percentage of each boating activity type to the overall boating use. The average boating party size was 2.4 for Survey C. The average number of hours boating was 4.5 hours for Survey C. Of the individuals surveyed who primarily recreated on Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes, 83 percent of the Survey C respondents (n=12) owned boats.

Table 4.9-9 summarizes the distribution of boat ownership by type of boat for Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes based on Survey C data (n=12) (no Survey A or Survey B data were received). Motor boats comprised about 53 percent of the boat ownership, compared to the other boat categories, followed by jet skis at about 18 percent. The ownership of motor boat types was about 18 percent small motor boats (ranging 20 feet or less in size) and about 35 percent medium motor boats (ranging between 21 to 40 feet in size).

Figure 4.9-8 shows the period of the day the respondents indicated they primarily boated, for Survey C. For Survey C about 1.5 percent of the respondents launched boats at Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes compared to the other lakes within the Catawba-Wateree system.

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The overall boat carrying capacity is assessed based on the peak boating use estimates obtained during the aerial flyovers in the 1999 study period. The available boating acreage was adjusted from the base boats per acreage estimate (see Table 4.9-10) by the following factors (Warren and Rea, 1989):

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Table 4.9-11 summarizes the assessment of the allowable overall boat capacity based on the usable water surface acreage and the boating activity mix identified from the surveys. Because no respondents commenting on the Great Falls Lakes for Surveys A and B, the percent usage distribution values were substituted from Mountain Island Lake. Table 4.9-12 provides the assessment of the percent capacity of the boat use for Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes on the peak day during the 1999 study period. Great Falls and Rocky Creek Lakes during the weekday was estimated at 2 percent capacity, during the weekend at 6 percent capacity, and during the peak holiday period at 8 percent capacity for overall boating use.