Lake Hartwell · South Carolina and Georgia
Wake-enhanced boats build a surfable wave that reaches the bank. South Carolina's rule does not cover that shoreline. Georgia's does. Same lake.
We are asking both states for one standard: no wake enhancement within 500 feet of shore, none in water shallower than 20 feet, and only on the main body where the water can hold it. Not a ban. The sport stays legal. The wave stays off the bank.
Lake level right now: checking… USGS gauge →
Keep the surf wave that far off any bank, dock or swimmer.
Deep enough that the wake is not tearing up the bottom.
You cannot keep 500 feet off both banks in a narrow arm. So: main body.
What happened
In August 2026 the Army Corps of Engineers set Hartwell's target level at 656 feet, year round, down from a summer target of 660. There is a good reason: seepage in a dike near Clemson, and nobody is arguing with the repair. The Corps is not draining the lake. Today's low water is drought. What changed is the ceiling.
The Corps' own permit for riprap and seawalls says stone may not be placed below 655 feet. The lake's new normal level sits one foot above that. Below it, you are not allowed to protect your own bank.
The Corps says the study alone takes up to two years, and then design, funding and construction. The Corps estimates five to ten years or more. This is not one bad summer. It is the next decade.
The water's edge moved. Ground that sat safely underwater for forty years is now the shoreline. It has no grass, no roots and no stone on it, and it is taking the waves.
Your riprap is in the wrong place. Whatever you or the last owner paid for was built for a 660 foot lake. A lot of it now sits above the water while the waves hit underneath it.
Every cove got shallower at once. A cove that had 20 feet of water has 16 now. That matters because depth is what keeps a boat's wake from digging up the bottom.
We did not take anyone's word for this. We pulled the government's own daily lake readings, 7,726 of them going back to 2005, and measured it. The numbers are in the download below.
What we're asking for
Right now Lake Hartwell has two different rules. Georgia's wake surfing law protects the shoreline in front of homes. South Carolina's law protects docks and swimmers, but never mentions the shoreline at all. Same lake. Same afternoon. Two different answers.
On the South Carolina side, a bank with no dock on it has no wake surf protection whatsoever. Cross the state line and the exact same thing is illegal.
Ballast tanks and bags, wedges, mechanical fins, aftermarket shapers, or running bow-high on purpose to build a surfable wave. The rule follows the mode, not the boat. A boat on plane at normal speed, with none of that in use, is not covered.
To stay 500 feet off the bank on your left and 500 feet off the bank on your right, and still have room to run, you need about a quarter mile of water. The main body of Hartwell has that. The narrow upper arms do not. Nobody has to draw a line on a map. A depth chart already answers it.
Most people running these boats are our neighbors, and plenty of them already stay well off the bank without being asked. A clear rule helps them too. Right now a boater trying to do the right thing gets a different answer depending on which side of an invisible line they're on, and no guidance at all about depth.
Do something
Letters from real people with real addresses are what move an agency, and they beat any number of signatures. Start with whichever of these you will actually finish today.
Tell them what the lower level is doing in front of your place, and ask when the public gets to comment on the record. One paragraph is plenty. Attach one dated photo.
CESAS-HartwellPoolRestriction@usace.army.mil
You do not need a speech. "I live on Lake Hartwell, I want one wake rule for both sides, 500 feet and 20 feet." That is the whole thing. Names and numbers are below.
Who to call ↓Same spot, same angle, something in the frame for scale. Put the date and the lake level in the filename. A year of these from a dozen properties beats every study we can quote.
WakeOffTheBank@gmail.com
The petition opens once the first round of letters is out. Check back, or send a letter now and you will have done the more useful thing anyway.
Sign the petitionWho to call
Be friendly. These are small offices and the person answering the phone is usually the person who decides whether your message gets passed along. Say where you live on the lake.
South Carolina Senate · District 1
Sen. Thomas C. Alexander
President of the South Carolina Senate. Represents Oconee and Pickens Counties and lives in Walhalla. If one person can move this, it is him.
(803) 212-6220
South Carolina House · District 1
Rep. Bill Whitmire
Oconee and Pickens Counties.
(803) 734-3068
South Carolina House · District 2
Rep. Adam L. Duncan
Oconee and Pickens Counties.
(803) 212-4472
Georgia House · District 33
Rep. Alan Powell
Covers Franklin and Hart Counties and part of Madison. If you are on the Georgia side of the lake, he is your representative.
alan.powell@house.ga.gov
(706) 206-6500
Georgia Senate · District 50
Sen. Bo Hatchett
Covers Franklin County. Not Hart County — if you are in Hart, use the lookup below to find your senator.
bo.hatchett@senate.ga.gov
(404) 656-7454
Army Corps of Engineers
Hartwell Project Office
They run the lake and they issue the shoreline permits. Ask them about the 655 foot limit.
(706) 856-0300
CESAS-HartwellPoolRestriction@usace.army.mil
Not sure who represents you? Look it up by address: South Carolina or Georgia. Both South Carolina House districts above cover Oconee County, and we could not confirm which one contains Westminster, so the lookup is the safe answer.
Districts and contacts here were checked against scstatehouse.gov and legis.ga.gov. Several county websites still list out-of-date names for these seats. If you find something wrong, tell us.
Read more
We do not expect anyone to take our word for any of this. Every number on this page comes from a published government record or a peer reviewed study, and these documents show you exactly which one.
This is why the depth number is in the rule. In surf mode, the University of Minnesota measured sediment lifting off the lakebed at 14 feet, confirmed on sonar and underwater video, and at 9 feet the propeller wash sheared and uprooted plants. Their recommendation was 20 feet or more. At a 656 foot target, a cove that used to hold 20 feet holds 16.
Cloudy water is what you swim in and what fish use along the shore. We are not telling you wake boats have damaged Hartwell's habitat, because nobody has measured that here. We are telling you what other lakes measured, and that our coves just got shallower.
One thing we will say plainly: the 500 foot and 20 foot numbers were measured on other lakes, because nobody has measured ours. That is why we are asking people to photograph their banks. If you have a depth sounder and you run past the usual surf spots, those readings would help more than anything we could cite.