Craving a swim? Lake Murray doesn’t offer much in the way of public access
The opening of South Carolina’s newest state park has become a flash point for conversations about access to one of the state’s biggest lakes.
With Pine Island scheduled to open to the public in October, lawmakers moved to add visitor restrictions for the park to the 2026 state budget, requiring visitors to reserve a parking space ahead of time to limit traffic through the surrounding residential area off Lake Murray. Gov. Henry McMaster vetoed that proposal, citing concerns it would stop the public from enjoying the new park.
“I am vetoing this proviso because it prematurely mandates the operation of a reservation system at Pine Island State Park, months before the park opens, and before attendance and traffic patterns demonstrate the need to institute one,” McMaster said in his veto message sent to the Legislature. “In addition, this proviso may be interpreted as an effort to limit access to the lakefront amenities available for recreation at our state’s newest park.”
The conflict over access raises expectations that public interest will be high once Pine Island opens. That’s partly because the 27-acre park is expected to be only the second publicly accessible lakefront that offers space for swimming in Lake Murray.
The park’s opening would double the number of spots where the public can swim in the 48,000-acre lake formed by the Saluda Dam. Currently, the only other point on the lake where the public can swim is the Dominion-owned Lake Murray Public Park on the south side of the dam.
Could additional options for the public to access the oft-cited “Jewel of South Carolina” be on the horizon?
Limited access
Lake Murray is somewhat limited in the number of places where the public can get to the water, when compared to other lakes around the state.
Santee Cooper manages South Carolina’s other major, man-made lakes, Marion and Moultrie. Those lakes have six public recreation areas between them, as well as 14 public boat launches on Lake Marion and seven on Lake Moultrie, the state-owned utility said in response to a question from The State.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has several recreation options on its man-made lakes, which straddle the South Carolina-Georgia border; 24 on Lake Russell, 50 on Lake Strom Thurmond and 81 on Lake Hartwell between the Corps, the states and local operators. Both the Corps of Engineers and Santee Cooper are public agencies, which makes their reservoirs public property, unlike the private-owned Lake Murray.
Duke Energy, the state’s other large energy provider, manages two main recreation areas, Colonel Creek and Molly Creek, both on Lake Wateree, plus dozens of smaller ones, including 11 others it leases to other agencies; Devil’s Fork on Lake Jocassee is a state park. Ebenezer Park on Lake Wylie is run by York County.
At Lake Murray, on the other hand, much of the shoreline is taken up by private homes and docks, giving the public more limited access. Of its 650 miles of shoreline, an estimated 60% is individually held.
Richland County attempted to develop its own public park on the lake, purchasing four lakeside acres in the Ballentine area in 2015. The county ultimately backed away from that plan over opposition from neighbors — highlighting the difficulty of adding new access points that could attract carloads of new visitors to an already developed area.
More options on the way?
Dominion Energy has said it plans to increase its public offerings around the lake, according to information the power company submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as part of the application to renew its license to operate its hydroelectric generating dam.
That’s still the plan, Dominion told The State, although the proposal was initially put together in 2009 by the energy company’s predecessor SCANA, and its application for the multi-decade license is still pending.
Those plans don’t include adding another swimming beach, the documents show, but about 1,400 acres of land will be used to create six new park sites on the south side of the lake, three on the north side, as well as three new park sites along the lower Saluda River, The State previously reported.
“As part of the relicensing process, Dominion Energy entered into a comprehensive settlement agreement with stakeholders in 2009,” the company said in a statement. “The agreement included a recreation plan for Lake Murray and the lower Saluda River once a new license was approved. We are waiting for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue a license.”
Besides planned improvements to existing recreation sites, within 10 years of the new license, Dominion will develop several new sites, adding public parking, fishing areas, amenities and walking trails. That includes improvements to Shull and Bundrick islands on the south side of the lake and possibly working with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources to develop Rocky Creek as a wildlife management area.
“We continue to work with our community partners to increase public access beyond the scope of the 2009 recreation plan,” Dominion’s statement to The State reads. “This includes ongoing development of the Saluda Riverwalk and Saluda Shoals Park.”
Different local agencies have been working for years to develop a riverwalk that would ultimately connect the Lake Murray Dam to Saluda Shoals Park on the northside of the Saluda River, and then connect across the Broad and Congaree rivers to Columbia, Cayce and West Columbia.
Currently, the Lake Murray Public Park brings in visitors each season from April to September, with demand so high that this year the park started requiring visitors to make a parking reservation in advance on Dominion’s website — not dissimilar to what S.C. lawmakers wanted to do with Pine Island.
But in the energy company’s application, the Lake Murray park is listed as only the 12th most visited site on the lake when data was being gathered back in 2006. But it notes at the time the number of visitors to the park had likely been driven down by construction on North Lake Drive and an early beach closure that year.
Although the power company’s application remains the same, it acknowledges that based on today’s usage rates, Lake Murray Park and the recreation area and boat launch to the north of the Saluda Dam are the two most visited public sites on the lake.
New state park
Pine Island doesn’t feature as a future park site in Dominion’s application because at the time, it was still a private space reserved for the use of SCE&G employees. The island was only turned over to the state in 2021 as a way for the struggling utility to meet its tax liabilities.
Now, the state’s newest park is slated to have a “soft opening” in October, following several snags that delayed the planned opening for more than a year — including a fire that destroyed the building intended to be the park manager’s house, and damaged from Hurricane Helene last fall.
Neighbors in the Yacht Cove area expressed concerns when the state acquired Pine Island that daily visitor traffic would become a hazard for the residential developments that branch off of River Road, the only avenue leading to the newest park from the busy North Lake Drive up from the dam. That led to the push to require reservations in next year’s state budget that was ultimately vetoed by the governor.
When the park does finally open to the public, it will include swimming, picnic stations and dock slips available for long-term boat parking. The existing SCANA clubhouse on the island is being renovated into a new event venue called Sunset Hall.
Visitors can swim at Dreher Island, the only other state park on Lake Murray, but the island doesn’t have a beach area on the water. At 348 acres, it’s the largest public recreation area on the lake, and accounted for around a quarter of all lake visitors at the time of the power company’s federal license application.
The state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism once maintained public swimming areas on the island, but discontinued maintenance when state officials said they couldn’t find enough lifeguards to staff it. Now swimming at the state park is “at your own risk,” a department spokesperson previously told The State.
One other option for visitors to the lake is Bundrick Island, which is managed by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources and is accessible only by boat. The island’s Sandy Beach has long been popular with daytrippers arriving by boat. The company’s license application notes that some 20% of all visitors to the lake frequented Bundrick Island.
“Although Bundrick Island could potentially be a large park on the southern side of the reservoir near the town of Lexington,” the application recommends “that the site should continue to be managed in its current state for as long as possible. The site serves diverse interests and is obviously well liked by patrons. SCE&G will continue to informally monitor this site to see if perceptions change.”
This story was originally published June 20, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
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