Why “FOLKS” held its tongue

Two leaders of “FOLKS”—Friends of Lake Keowee—sat at the front of a recent forum on lake levels and, for the most part, sat quietly. Since the November 15 forum, they’ve been getting questions as to why the organization did not support a petition calling for no Lake Keowee water level changes. The answer, according to Bob Swank and Ben Turetsky, is that as members of the Keowee-Toxaway project

re-licensing stakeholder team they cannot publicly endorse any specific positions. Swank and Turetsky added, “…and we committed to negotiate all elements of the re-licensing to a mutually agreeable conclusion.” A “FOLKS” statement today on the re-licensing and the lake level issue said the organization anticipated that lowering the lake level, even during the most severe droughts, was going to be the biggest public issue in the re-licensing and that’s why, according to Swank and Turetsky, “We asked Duke Energy to present the re-licensing update to bring that issue out into the open.”

 

Lake residents