Spartanburg Water to build nature trail at Lake Blalock Park
April 14, 2025
Devastation caused by Hurricane Helene offers unique opportunity to improve park for visitors
What do you do when Hurricane Helene gives you numerous lemons in the form of thousands of downed trees?
Well, in the next several months, Spartanburg Water with the assistance of community volunteers, scouting groups and team members, will be turning those lemons into sweet lemonade, with the creation of a nearly 2 mile nature trail throughout the park.
Hurricane Helene caused immense damage throughout Lake Blalock Park, located at 1925 Sandy Ford Rd. in Chesnee. So much so, that the park remained closed for five months while trees and debris were cleared and facilities were repaired.
“Our Chief Lake Warden, Jon Morgan, and I were walking through the park prior to it re-opening to the public, and I asked him if there might be any opportunities to improve the park for visitors, and he asked if a trail might be a possibility,” said Guy Boyle, Spartanburg Water CEO. “It took me all of about 10 seconds to respond with, ‘What a great idea – can you make it work?’”
Utilizing the mulched logging roads that were created in an effort to remove the thousands of downed and damaged trees throughout the park, the newly created nature trail will be an educational and beautiful walk throughout the 80+ acres of park.
“Hurricane Helene brought significant destruction to our community, so why don’t we turn that on its head and bring something meaningful and lasting to improve the health, vitality and appreciation of our natural resources to our community – all while enjoying views of our incredible drinking water resources,” added Boyle.
Anyone interested in volunteering to assist with the creation of the new nature trails at Lake Blalock Park are encouraged to contact the Lake Blalock Wardens’ Office at (864) 578-5442. For more information on Lake Blalock, please visit www.spartanburgwater.org/our-lakes.
ABOUT SPARTANBURG WATER
Spartanburg Water, an award-winning utility, is comprised of Spartanburg Water System and Spartanburg Sanitary Sewer District. It serves a population of nearly 240,000 within Spartanburg County, as well as others in parts of Greenville, Union and Cherokee counties. With the help of its dedicated team of nearly 300 employees, each day it produces an average of 25 million gallons of drinking water and cleans 14 million gallons of reclaimed water for its customers and community.
