LCNP is pleased to announce the registration for Half-moon Outfitter’s 3rd Annual Foothills 6k at Lake Conestee Nature Park is now officially open. This year’s race sponsors are Patagonia, Salomon, and SmartWool. Race proceeds benefit Lake Conestee Nature Park. We had over 200 people participate last year. We hope to see some familiar faces this year, in addition to making some new friends!

February 4, 2012 @ 9AM
LCNP (Municipal Stadium Entrance) – 840 Mauldin Rd. Greenville, SC 29607

Race Registration: $25
Registration includes participation fee and a race packet. Race packets are comprised of a Patagonia Capilene 1 Stretch FD6K t-shirt and potential other goodies. Race packets are available for pickup at Half-moon Outfitters on Friday, February 3rd between 10AM and 6PM or at the event site on Saturday, February 4th between 8AM and 8:45AM.
Register online today for the 3rd Annual FD6K here Go-GreenEvents.com.
You can also register in-store at Half-moon Outfitters at 1420 Laurens Rd. Greenville, SC 29607. Call 864-233-4001 for more info.

The Foothills Drifter 6k is a rain/sleet/snow or shine event. We have every intention of forging ahead regardless of weather and hope you are all up to the task! We have quite a track record with the weather man and expect the 3rd annual race will stick to trend. The  2011 race was held in 40 degree drizzle and the 2010 race was held in sleet and freezing rain. There is no rain date and the registration fee is non-refundable.

Race T-shirts will be Patagonia Capilene 1 Stretch tees! Race T-shirt sizes are only guaranteed for registrations prior to January 16th, 2012. If you register after January 16 you will get a race T-shirt but sizes will be on a first-come, first-served basis at Packet Pickup.

The Conestee Foundation is developing a team of volunteer park guides to assist groups with park tours.

The Conestee Foundation is frequently asked by school groups, scout troops, civic organizations, or nature study groups to provide guided tours of Lake Conestee Nature Park.  These requests are often more than our staff can respond to, so we are training volunteer tour guides to assist with these requests.  Our objective is to train and maintain a core team of about 12-15 volunteer tour guides.

LCNP Tour Guides will be trained in the basic knowledge and history of the park.  The basic training will include:

• Safety, security, and park patron protection at LCNP
• Non-allowed activities at the park
• Orientation to the trail system and key park features
• History of human activities in the park and surrounding communities
• Historic Conestee Mill
• Historic Lake Conestee Dam
• Natural history of LCNP
• Wildlife at the park
• Major ecosystems of the park
• Environmental conditions in former Lake Conestee
• Orientation to the Reedy River watershed
• The Conestee Foundation and LCNP
• Volunteer opportunities at LCNP

The park guides will be asked occasionally to conduct tours (typically 2-3 hrs) for various small groups. These requests will be rotated among the guides to minimize the scheduling burden.

Dave Hargett, Executive Director of the Conestee Foundation, will typically conduct the training.  Training will take place at 1:30-4:30 pm on the first Tuesday of each month (typically, subject to change), with the first Thursday as a rain date.  If you want to sign up to be a LCNP guide, contact Drew Gonick, Project Coordinator, at conesteepark@gmail.com.

Volunteer park guides that completed the orientation program on 22 February are from left: Jonathan Smith & Betsy George

A hearty group of volunteer tour guide trainees braved the 35 degree weather on 7 December to learn about LCNP. From left, Lynne Nachman, Larry Candler, Bob Thorn, Fred Echeverria, and CF Ex Dir Dave Hargett

Volunteer LCNP guides that completed the orientation program on 4 January 2011 are from left: Jim Gossett, Anne Martin, Tom Kester, and Paul Serridge.

Dr. Drew Lanham of the Clemson University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources recorded his radio program at Lake Conestee in early December.  This program is part of a regular series by Clemson’s “Your Day” program focusing on the outdoors recreational resources of South Carolina and broadcast by SCETV radio affiliates.  Dr. Lanham, a Certified Wildlife Biologist and an accomplished naturalist, was accompanied by producer Bob McAnaly.

Birding at LCNP on an icy morning. L to R Jane Kramer, Bob McAnaly, Dr. Drew Lanham, Paul Serridge (behind Drew), and Don Faulkner.

The program was recorded along the trails, boardwalks, and wetland observation decks of LCNP on a crisp 18°F morning, when most of the waters and wetlands of the park were iced over.  Drew was joined by Paul Serridge, Don Faulkner, and Jane Kramer of the Greenville County Birding Club, and Dave Hargett, Executive Director of the Conestee Foundation.  Most of the program was recorded at the East Bay and West Bay observation decks.

It was an excellent birding morning with some 40+ species providing great bird sights and sounds.  We had several unique sightings, including Rusty Blackbirds, of course, waterfowl, raptors, and piscavores.  And, of course, great “birdy” discussion.  The program addressed the “Important Bird Area” program and LCNP’s recent recognition as an IBA of “Global Significance”.  On our way across the park we saw deer and jumped wood ducks.  Once at the West Bay we found the entire wetland iced-over, and both large beaver pools frozen solid but the area still very “birdy”.

The program aired on 28 December and Dr. Lanham and the “Your Day” folks ran a full 54 minute program.  You can tune in to the podcast and download the MP3 program at the following link.

Related note:  Dr. Lanham is also one of our special “Habitat Improvement Advisors” to CF/LCNP.  And, he routinely brings student groups to LCNP from Clemson, one of the many benefits to the Upstate region of our special wild place.

Thanks to our friends at Clemson for giving our avian resources at LCNP this great exposure!  Thanks, Drew !

Listen to the Your Day podcast from LCNP at the link below:

http://cufan.clemson.edu/psaradiopod/YDPodcast/YD101228.mp3

http://yourday.clemson.edu/

Tom Kester, Chairman of the Board of the Conestee Foundation, has announced that Dr. Dave Hargett has been engaged to serve as Executive Director of the Foundation.

In this capacity Dave will be responsible for oversight and management of Lake Conestee Nature Park, coordination of park management with Greenville County Recreation District, and administration of trail construction projects.  He will also be responsible for oversight of grants and development of funding sources to support park development and program activities.

Dave is co-founder of the Conestee Foundation, and was the architect of the complex process of transforming the Lake Conestee property into LCNP over the last 12 years.  He helped guide the acquisition of Lake Conestee and worked closely with SCDHEC and USEPA to develop and execute the strategy for assessment of environmental conditions at the lake.  Dave led numerous technical environmental assessment studies addressing surface water, sediments, soils, groundwater, fish tissue, and ecological conditions in the former Lake Conestee, and the Reedy River above and below the lake.  He also conducted an assessment of the Lake Conestee Dam and developed the Emergency Action Plan for the dam.  He also facilitated the Foundation’s first trails grants through SCPRT’s Recreational Trails program.  He has continuously served as technical advisor, and as a constant volunteer to the Foundation from its beginning.

Dave and his wife, Holli, have resided in Greenville for over 21 years.  Dave has had a long and accomplished career as an environmental consultant, and equally distinguished service as a conservation advocate and volunteer.  He formerly served as board chair of Upstate Forever, board member and executive director of Friends of the Reedy, and is an emeritus board member of SC Wildlife Federation.  He currently serves on the board of directors of the National Wildlife Federation.  Dave is an adjunct faculty member in the Departments of Forestry and Natural Resources and Environmental Engineering and Science at Clemson University.  He is also a Senior Scholar with the South Carolina Water Resources Center at the Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson.

Baseball complex first step toward Greenville County’s outdoor recreation center

By Nathaniel Cary Staff writer

ncary@greenvillenews.com

Decades from today, a first-time partnership between the city of Greenville and the Greenville County Recreation District may be seen as the linchpin that turned an abandoned and aging baseball stadium into what some are already calling the centerpiece of a “Central Park” with more than 800 acres of green space on the outskirts of Greenville.

The site owned by Greenville but leased for 40 years to the recreation district includes Municipal Stadium where the Greenville Braves played baseball for two decades. It’s soon to be home to a $4 million four-field baseball complex that will feature a $1 million renovation to the 25-year-old stadium.

It will also become home to a Greenville Little League baseball program that has been stunted in its growth for lack of playing space. Officials hope to attract regional tournaments and traveling teams that would bring rental income to the site and a boost to local restaurants and hotels.

The baseball complex will connect to an expanding Swamp Rabbit Trail and the 400-acre Lake Conestee Nature Park to form the nucleus of a park centrally located in the county and offering active and passive recreation opportunities.

“This is going to be the center park, our own Greenville, South Carolina, Central Park,” said Greenville City Councilwoman Lillian Brock Flemming. “This is a great day.”

Greenville has moved from “the bottom rung” of recreation “just a few years ago” to become “the envy of the nation,” County Council Chairman Butch Kirven said.

When the Braves skipped town and left an empty Municipal Stadium in 2004, the city immediately began to receive offers to purchase the aging stadium on Mauldin Road, Greenville Mayor Knox White said.

Proposals came and went to turn it into a warehouse, soccer complex or racetrack that could have netted the city $1 million or more, but city leaders held to their belief that the site’s best use would be for recreation in a decision that “was never about dollars and cents,” White said.

“The question we had when we moved the stadium downtown was the reuse of the site, do we want to simply sell it and realize a windfall or do we want to hold back and see if we can find a recreation reuse for the area?” White said.

That question was answered Wednesday when a bulldozer leveled two saplings on a 12-acre barren lot to break ground as officials chanted “break that ground” from under a nearby tent.

At the heart of the complex will be renovations to turn Municipal Stadium into a 1,500-seat stadium with new restrooms in a more intimate atmosphere to watch Little League games, said Gene Smith, executive director of the recreation department.

The new Municipal Stadium baseball complex will connect to Lake Conestee Nature Park and an extension of the Swamp Rabbit Trail

Four new fields will be split into two sizes. Two fields will have 225- to 250-foot fences and 60-foot base paths for younger players, a third field can be converted between a smaller and full-sized field and another full-sized field will have a 380-foot fence, plans show.

One field may be left with a dirt infield for softball use.

The diamonds will each have batting cages, and a central media tower will have a view of each field, Smith said. Two parking lots will add 206 spaces to 1,400 available at Municipal Stadium.

The fields should be open by summer 2011, Smith said.

The project is funded through the county’s restaurant tax as part of the recreation district’s Tourism, Recreation and Athletics Coalition plan started in 2006, Smith said.

Its ability to attract regional and traveling tournaments to Greenville will make it a valuable use of those tax dollars that will benefit local hotels and restaurants, White said, while its strategic location close to Interstate 85 and central location in Greenville County make it an ideal recreation site for county residents, Smith said.

The city of Greenville still owns the 40-acre site, but has leased it to the recreation district for 40 years, Smith said.

Lake Conestee Nature Park already offers more than five miles of trails that residents are just starting to explore, said Jeffery Beacham, executive director of the Lake Conestee Foundation.

The baseball complex will raise awareness of the park, which plans to add an outdoor education facility on site and eventually connect its trails to the Swamp Rabbit Trail, Beacham said.

It furthers a partnership that includes Renewable Water Resources’ 200 acres of land near I-85 that it has allowed for the Swamp Rabbit Trail connection to be built on the banks of the Reedy River.

ReWa, formerly called Western Carolina Regional Sewer Authority, is committed to helping construct an “urban city park” on the site, said ReWa Executive Director Ray Orvin.

Another 150 acres the city of Greenville owns could become a golf course or some other green space on a closed landfill site, White said.

The new complex will become home to Greenville Little League, which has outgrown its single field at Timmons Park in Greenville, said Neil Jones, past president and board member of Greenville Little League.

The league offered baseball for ages 7-12 to about 250 children this year, but has been using two county fields at Butler Springs Park and has run out of space, Jones said.

It hopes to start softball and expand its baseball league with the additional space, Jones said.

“We want to be able to reach out to some of the kids in Greenville that have not been playing baseball before, some of the inner-city kids, and with one field, we just haven’t been able to do that,” Jones said.

Staff writer Nathaniel Cary can be reached at 864-616-4209.