Aiken County One of Three Beneficiaries of Dominion Energy’s V.C. Summer Plant Tax Settlement

by Don Moniak

December 18, 2022

A second state park should be opening in Aiken County in 2023 when South Carolina State Parks officially adds the former 192-acre, South Carolina Electric and Gas (SCEG) employee recreation area known as Misty Lake to its park system.  South Carolina Director of State Parks Paul McCormack confirmed Friday in a telephone interview that the state closed on the Dominion Energy property this past Wednesday, December 14th. Dominion is scheduled to hand over the keys right after the New Year.

The agency intends to have the park open for public use later in 2023, after finishing the necessary facilities work; but no opening date goal is set. Since the state park system is self-funded, there will be user fees, but those remain to be determined. As a point of comparison, Aiken State Park currently charges $3 per adult and $1 per day for children.

A facility inspection and a Phase I Environmental Assessment were completed prior to closing to ensure the state was not inheriting any liabilities, such as a faulty dam. The park is tentatively named “Misty Lake State Park,” but the decision is not final. 

Misty Lake is one of three new state park properties obtained as part of a settlement on unpaid sales taxes from the failed VC Summer Nuclear Power Plant expansion.  The $9 billion dollar fiasco ultimately led to convictions of high level officials, and Dominion Energy acquiring the largest private utility in South Carolina, SCANA energy.   

The land exchange was first reported a year ago by the Post and Courier of Charleston and the Associated Press.  The other two new parks are in other relatively affluent settings—Lexington and Georgetown Counties—which SCEG also selected for employee parks and executive retreats. 

Situated about halfway between uptown Graniteville and
Belvedere, Misty Lake is in the midst of the fastest growing portion of Aiken County where large private landholdings are in demand. “
In the past eighteen months developers purchased two other other large land holdings near Misty Lake:

• Greenville based RIdge Road Holdings, LLC purchased a thousand acre property less than one mile to the north for $6 million in 2022. 
• Beazly Development Company of Evans purchased a two hundred acre property 3.5 miles to the northeast in 2021. 
  
  Instead of Dominion probably selling these assets to a developer to pay off part of its large acquisition debt, the property will now serve as a quiet public park to an area presently lacking in open, public space.

The property is composed of three parcels:

• 1280 Ascauga Lake Road; a 35-acre parcel with twenty eight year old, 1450 square foot former clubhouse adjacent to a seven acre pond and surrounded by 28 acres of loblolly pine dominated forest.
• A 12.5-acre undeveloped tract on the west side of the pond that is also dominated by mature loblolly pine.
• A 145-acre tract north of the pond stretching to I-20, presently classified as mostly ag-timber land, and a mix of loblolly pine timber production plantations interspersed with hardwood bottoms. 

Part 2: From Howard’s Pond to Misty Lake.