Leesville Lake Life Issue 1 2022

EDITOR Debra Ferrell

Adam Powell,

GRAPHIC DESIGN

DESIGN

LAYOUT

Motley, Amanda Meadows, Susan Lambert, Mary Beth Wellborn

Leesville Lake Life Magazine is published throughout the year by Womack Publishing Company, the publisher of The Altavista Journal.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: The Altavista Journal • 1007-A Main Street • Altavista

PUBLISHED BY WOMACK PUBLISHING COMPANY

Cover: Kyle Goldsmith, owner of Carter’s General Store, Outpost & Deli in the Leesville area of Lynch Station, examines a kayak recently returned from its rental. He rents kayaks and sells fishing equipment at the store that is like a trip to the past as it celebrates its “country store” mystique. Photo by Debra Ferrell.

Not Just for Hydroelectricity: The History of Smith Mountain & Leesville Dams

Story by Jeffrey Westbrook

icknamed the “Jewel of the Blue Ridge,” Smith Mountain Lake — one of Virginia’s largest lakes — is well known for its scenic beauty and its popularity as a vacation, recreation, and nature heaven. Leesville Lake, just down the river, is a much smaller but equally beautiful body of water, similarly nicknamed “Blue Jewel near the Blue Ridge Mountains.” Yet the lake owes its existence not to nature lovers, water sport enthusiasts, or even lakeshore property owners, but rather to a hydroelectric power project.

Without Smith Mountain Dam and Leesville Dam, there would be neither Smith Mountain Lake nor Leesville Lake. The history of those dams stretches back more than one hundred years, and it wasn’t until the structures were built

that people started realizing the potential the project had for so much in addition to electricity.

Before the dam

For hundreds of years, the Roanoke and Blackwater Rivers, the Roanoke Valley, and the Smith Mountain Gap saw Native Americans of numerous tribes (such as the Monacan, Saponi and Cherokee) traveling through, meeting at, and living in the area. Around the future Leesville Lake area were Cherokee, Monacan, Saponi, Tutero, and Powhatan peoples. Heavy flooding of the river in the spring made it at times a dangerous place (earning it the nickname “River of Death”), but game was plentiful. The river was a major transportation corridor for Native Americans.

There is evidence that Spanish explorers, considering the region to be a part of Florida, visited the area that would one

Leesville, Smith Mountain Lakes as vacation, recreation, & nature destinations a fortunate byproduct

day become Leesville in the 16th century. The first recorded account of a European visiting the area was John Lederer, a German explorer who visited the Blue Ridge foothills and Shenandoah and Roanoke Valleys in 1669-70. Gen. Abraham Wood and Thomas Batts’ expedition came through the area the following year (Batts is credited with making first contact with the Saponi of the area that is now Campbell County). English settlers began moving into the area in the 1730s and 40s, attracted by the plentiful land and rich soil. Brothers Daniel and Gideon Smith arrived in 1740 and claimed the mountain, which bears their name and would one day provide the name of the future dam and lake. But for 200 years, the area remained rural farmland.

In 1856, Booker T. Washington was born in the Hale’s Ford community of Franklin County, near what is today Smith Mountain Lake. He became a prominent educator, orator, civil rights advocate, and leader of the African-American community. His birthplace is now a national monument.

The idea of constructing a hydroelectric dam at Smith Mountain Gap was first suggested in 1906, but it would be another half-century plus before the dam on that site would become a reality. (The notion of a second dam in the Leesville area didn’t come about until later.) Rather, in 1906 the first hydroelectric dam on the Roanoke River was built just outside the growing city of Roanoke in Vinton. The

Roanoke Railroad and Electric Company operated it — using it to power streetcars — until 1924, when Appalachian Power purchased it.

To build or not to build?

In 1924, another company, the Roanoke-Staunton River Power Company, formed with the intention of constructing a dam across Smith Mountain gap to harness hydroelectric power (the Roanoke River is known as the Staunton River for the stretch between present-day Leesville and Kerr Lakes). The company bought up thousands of acres of land in Bedford and Pittsylvania counties, but subsequent studies convinced them that the project would not be economically viable.

For the next few decades, opinions remained divided about the idea of a dam at the Smith Mountain Gap. The United States Army Corps of Engineers twice studied the locale and favored a dam there for flood control purposes, although the federal government did not act on this advice. Appalachian Power Company spoke up, expressing interest in such an endeavor as early as 1949, when the company told a congressional committee that it would build the dam provided that it could be economically tenable. Leesville Dam was still not in the picture.

Those opposed to the project included coal and railroad

Archive photos from the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce depict the construction of the dams. Photos contributed. Shown on opposite page, water goes over a spillway at the Smith Mountain Dam in May 2020. Responding Fire/Photo contributed.

companies, concerned about the new hydroelectric industry cutting into their businesses. Landowners poised to lose their property — often farmed by their family for generations — also objected. Furthermore, the federal government maintained in the 1940s and early ’50s that it had exclusive rights to build hyrdopower projects. It took a Supreme Court decision in 1953 to open the way for private companies to build hydroelectric dams again. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of private companies, in this instance the Virginia Electric Power Company, which subsequently built dams along the Roanoke River in North Carolina, first at Roanoke Rapids, and then the Gaston Dam.

Meanwhile, in 1947 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started constructing Kerr Dam farther down the Roanoke River from Smith Mountain, completing the project in 1953. The primary purpose was flood control, with recreation and hydropower secondary purposes. The lake which that dam created spreads into Virginia and North Carolina and is known as Buggs Island Lake north of the state border and Kerr Reservoir south of the state line.

In 1954, Appalachian Power’s parent company, American Electric Power, purchased from the now-defunct RoanokeStaunton River Power Company the land where the Smith Mountain Dam would be built and the rights to build the dam and hydroelectric facility. The original plan was to construct a 60-megawatt dam, but further studies (unlike the unfortunate studies of the Roanoke-Staunton River Power Company) spurred the company to think much bigger. The Smith Mountain Project expanded into a dual dam, dual lake project generating not 60 MW, but 400 at Smith Mountain Dam and 40 MW more at Smith Mountain Lake’s little sister, Leesville Lake.

It took several years to work out all the details, including gaining the support of Bedford and Franklin County governments for the project. Roads had to be abandoned, farmland purchased, and all sorts of government regulations met.

In 1959, an up-and-coming young design and project engineer from Ebaso Services named Jeffrey Fong (then 25 years old) came on board to design the dam. Fong, originally from Hong Kong, went on to design numerous other dams

The Leesville Lake Dam, constructed in the early 1960s, stands 90 feet tall and 980 feet long. Together with Smith Mountain Lake Dam, the pair form a dual-dam, dual-lake, pumped storage hydroelectric system. Photo contributed.

and structures, but over 50 years later, he remarked about Smith Mountain Dam, “This is my pride and joy.”

In the summer of 1960, construction began on Smith Mountain Dam and at the same time several miles down the serpentine river, Leesville Dam. As many as 400 workers were employed for the construction of the dams. In order to facilitate the land clearing and mountainside removal, as well as to move equipment and workers in and out, a cable 1,500 feet long was stretched across the gorge, 325 feet above the river below. The workers cleared away several hundred thousand cubic yards of the side of the mountain to make way for the dam. Concrete pouring began in June of 1961. It would take 175,000 cubic feet of concrete to complete the dam. The cable facilitated the transport of approximately 500,000 tons of building materials.

Meanwhile, Appalachian Power was responsible for making numerous arrangements for the people whose land was about to be flooded. Roads and bridges had to be abandoned, and alternate routes and bridges around the perimeter of the coming lake had to be constructed. In all, the power company constructed six new or replacement bridges and several miles of new roads, all completed by November 1962. Perhaps the most well-known bridge rebuilt was Hales Ford Bridge (the fourth of that name) along Highway 122, which still connects Bedford and Franklin Counties. It was built on higher ground than its predecessor, Hales Ford Bridge the Third (built circa 1940), which was left standing when the lake was filled.

Another hurdle to clear in order to flood the river valley was the finding and relocation of graves. An article in the Smith Mountain Eagle, “Cemetery relocation was a grave matter” (by Rebecca Jackson, Feb. 5, 2013), recounts the monumental task.

“Before the waters of Smith Mountain Lake rose in the mid 1960s over fields, woods and farmland populated for centuries, Appalachian Power Company faced a daunting and sensitive task, that of identifying and relocating the earthly remains of people interred in the path of the coming impoundment,” the article states.

Jackson continued, “APCo conducted its grave location project from 1961 to 1962, unearthing and relocating 1,361 graves containing both identified remains, and those whose names are known only to God.”

The painstaking search was the task of Appalachian Power employees C.O. Roberson and Herbert Taylor. They traipsed across 20,000 acres of land, looking for graves in churchyards, farmyards, woodlands and all manner of remote locations. (Roberson wrote a report of their project, “Relocation of Cemeteries in the Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Reservoir Areas of Bedford, Franklin, and Pittsylvania Counties,” a copy of which can be found at Lynchburg’s Jones Memorial Library.)

Finally, on Sept. 24, 1963, the gates of Smith Mountain Dam were closed, and the long process of the Blackwater and

The Leesville Lake Association holds annual lake beautification days to keep the beautiful natural area pristine, as is depicted in this photo. Leesville Lake Association/Contributed.

Roanoke Rivers filling in the lake began. A Roanoke outdoors writer described the expanding lake as “a jolly blue giant of a lake” in 1965. It took about two and a half years for the new body of water to reach full pond, 795 feet above sea level, on March 7, 1966. The filling received a final push thanks to snowmelt from a whopping 41-inch snowfall in Roanoke in January of that year.

Already by that time, the dam had been in operation for a few weeks producing electricity. The final cost for constructing the Smith Mountain Project (including both dams) totaled $66 million.

The dams and lakes by the numbers

At capacity, Smith Mountain Lake measures 200 feet in depth at the dam. The deepest point in the lake is 250 feet. The average depth is 55 feet, although the main channels run closer to 80-150 feet in depth. According to the Smith Mountain Project, “Smith Mountain Dam is a double curvature, concrete arch type spanning 816 feet and rising 235 feet above the floor of the gap; Leesville Dam is a concrete gravity dam and is 980 feet long and 90 feet tall.” The dam at Smith Mountain Gap measures 30 feet in thickness.

Smith Mountain Dam started with four hydroelectric power-generating units and added a fifth one in 1979. The five units produce 656,000 kilowatts of electricity.

The dual-dam, dual-lake system of Smith Mountain and Leesville comprise a pumped storage hydroelectric system. During peak electricity demand periods (morning to evening),

Leesville Lake is a hidden gem –indeed, its nickname indicates as much: “Blue Jewel near the Blue Ridge Mountains.” While its “big sister” lake, Smith Mountain Lake, has a well-known reputation as a vacation, recreation, and nature spot, Leesville Lake is perhaps the region’s best-kept secret.

Leesville Lake Association/Contributed.

water flows through the turbines at Smith Mountain Dam to generate electricity, and Leesville Lake just downstream captures the water. At low demand times, the water is pumped back from Leesville Lake to Smith Mountain Lake for re-use. Some water flows through the turbine at Leesville Lake for additional electricity production.

Smith Mountain Lake, with wider channels where the Blackwater and Roanoke Rivers flow in, has dozens of smaller inlets and coves; thus the lake’s perimeter measures over 500 miles of shoreline. The surface of the lake covers 20,800 acres or 32 square miles. The lake stretches for 40 miles in length. The capacity is 2.8 km3. Smith Mountain Lake is the second-largest lake in Virginia after Kerr Reservoir, but as the latter straddles two states, SML is the largest lake entirely in the commonwealth.

According to the Smith Mountain Project, “Leesville Lake is approximately 20 miles long, includes 100 miles of shoreline, and encompasses approximately 5,000 surface acres.”

Unexpected benefits of the project

It must be remembered that the Smith Mountain Project had been an electricity-generating endeavor from the start. The designing engineer, Fong, paid a visit to the lake and dam during its 50th anniversary celebration in 2016 and said that the focus in building the dam had been electricity. The recreation, vacation, water sports, nature, and tourism aspects of the pair of lakes were not even on his radar during those days of designing and building the dams. Not even the drinking water use of the reservoirs had occurred to the lakes’ builders. It is no wonder that Fong was astounded by what he saw when he revisited the site a half-century later.

First noticed by fishermen while the lake was still filling, Smith Mountain Lake rapidly grew in popularity for outdoor enthusiasts. Col. T.L. Cooper started the lake’s first campground, The Eagle’s Roost, in 1965. As the lake filled out, people started buying lakefront property for homes — vacation or primary residences. Soon boating, swimming, and other recreational activities found their way to the lake. Over the years, vacation rental property, golf courses and whole communities grew up around the lake.

Now 56 years old, Smith Mountain and Leesville Lakes are relatively young bodies of water, but whole generations have grown up not knowing the time before the lakes filled the valley. Smith Mountain Lake even has its own urban legends. No, alligators do not live in the lake (the winters are too cold for them). And contrary to rumors on the internet, there is not an abandoned town at the bottom of Smith Mountain Lake. Farms, roads, bridges and maybe a few buildings, yes. But no flooded town. (If you want to make a local oldtimer laugh, ask if they ever went to the town that is now underwater before the lake existed. Or so “a friend” told me.) Still, the colorful legend is popular enough to have inspired the name of a microbrewery, Sunken City Brewery in Hardy (now permanently closed).

In 1967, Appalachian Power donated 421 acres of land on the north shore of the lake in Bedford and Franklin Counties for the creation of Smith Mountain Lake State Park. The state purchased more land so that the park now covers 1,248 acres. Construction began in 1975, and the park opened in 1983. Today it offers a beach with swimming and concessions, camping, cabins, boat rentals, fishing pier, hiking trails, picnic pads with grills, a picnic shelter, an amphitheatre and discovery center. Both the state park and the entire two-lake system provide an abundance of opportunities for nature lovers to explore.

At the south end of the lake, Smith Mountain Dam has a visitor center (free admission) with an overlook of the dam, but the center is currently temporarily closed. It includes an audio-visual history of the lake’s creation, a scale model of the lake, and kid-friendly exhibits.

Leesville Lake, while less populated and less commercially developed than Smith Mountain Lake and without the growth of towns and businesses around its perimeter, nevertheless provides beautiful scenery and recreational activities. Perhaps the best-known business there is Leesville Lake Marina, which includes a restaurant, swimming pool, boat rentals, and various fishing opportunities. There is also a campground at Leesville Lake, and fishing guides can be hired to show the best fishing holes.

Today Smith Mountain and Leesville Lakes are home to about 21,000 residents and host a vibrant recreation, watersports and tourism hub for Central Virginia. The Smith Mountain Project has yielded far more than the hydroelectricity for which it was built. •

Foster Fuels

ou may know Foster Fuels as your turn-key provider of propane and hearth-and-home appliances that keep your family warm during those cooler lake days. But did you know Foster has another side to its business? Not only have they been providing marinas with fuel and propane-related services to the Central Virginia area for over 100 years, but they also have a Mission Critical emergency response division that provides critical fuel supply during the nation’s worst disasters.

In September of 2022, Foster Fuels dispatched over 100 trucks and over 100 personnel to support the relief efforts after Hurricane Ian’s aftermath. The company has assets across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina to deliver lifesaving fuel

and water during Hurricane Ian’sdevastating aftermath.

Through federal and private-sector contingency contracts, Foster has moved over 307,000 gallons of diesel, 125,500 gallons of gasoline, 29,000 gallons of propane, and 24,000 gallons of kerosene. In addition to FEMA, industries supported include power utilities, data centers, and major retail grocery chains.

The fuel Foster is providing helps run backup generators, keep utility crews’ bucket-truck fleets active, and first responders running rescue efforts. In addition to fuel, Foster provides other resources like diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), potable and non-potable water. The water is going to places like critical healthcare facilities that cannot function without uninterrupted access to clean, potable water.

“Our drivers are in good spirits,” said Freddie Wydner, Fuel

Story & Photos Courtesy of Chelsea Harrison Vice President of Marketing at Foster Fuels

Local Fuel Company Supports Hurricane Ian Relief Efforts with Over 100 Trucks Dispatched

Foster Fuels provides help in all types of natural disasters as well as man-made disturbances. They’re help with fuel delivery is essential in times of trouble. On opposite page, Foster Fuel trucks and employees are getting ready to hit the road to help victims of the Hurricane Ian event late September-early October.

Consultant on Foster Fuels’ Mission Critical team. “They are on call 24/7, and some are providing continuous onsite monitoring.” Wydner is operating from Foster’s mobile command center in Florida, where the team dispatches and communicates with Foster’s logistics team located at their headquarters in Brookneal, Virginia.

Foster’s Mission Critical team plans to stay on mission for as long as it takes. They preemptively staged trucks in Georgia ahead of the storm and have been active for almost two weeks now. The team is no stranger to long operational deployments, however. In 2017, the team was activated for a total of four months when three consecutive hurricanes hit, including Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico.

Foster’s Mission Critical team has responded to catastrophic events for almost two decades. Other notable, wide-scale activations include Superstorm Sandy, the Haiti Earthquake, and, most recently, Hurricane Ida in 2021.

In 2019, Foster Mission Critical responded to relief efforts in Florida after Hurricane Dorian hit. Its path of destruction stretched across multiple states, including North Carolina and Georgia, causing almost four billion dollars in damages.

The team is proud to serve in this way but is also thankful for their customers at home. “Giving back is one of our main values,” stated Chelsea Harrison, Vice President of Marketing at Foster Fuels. “It’s because of our local community that we

are able to help others in this way.”

Foster Fuels has propane showroom locations throughout Central Virginia, including ones in Huddleston, Forest, and Rustburg. They offer outdoor living appliances, fireplaces, tankless water heaters, installation, and tanks.

“We are not only proud of our emergency team in Florida and Georgia,” Harrison continued, “but our team in Virginia and North Carolina and abroad. They keep our community running and homes warm every day!”

About Foster Fuels, Inc.

Family-owned and operated since 1921, Foster Fuels Inc. is committed to providing customers with the best quality products and most professional service in the industry. The company offers turnkey services. It distributes many types of fuel, including propane, heating oil, diesel, and gasoline to residential, commercial, agricultural, and government contractors. Foster Fuels delivers, installs, and maintains a wide selection of hearth and home products, including gas logs, propane grills, tankless water heaters, and indoor and outdoor heaters. To learn more about Foster Fuels and its community and national involvement, visit the company website, fosterfuels.com. Follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to keep up with events and professional propane advice. •

Lakeside Services

Providing high-quality floating docks throughout region

Story by Adam Powell Photos courtesy of Pete Cox of Lakeside Services

For those who live in and around Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake, it’s not uncommon to see docks all throughout the area constructed by Pete Cox and his team at Lakeside Designs. Cox, a Wahoo Docks installer, has been constructing docks in the local area for the last 16 years. In recent years, Cox has seen a considerable boom in dock building, particularly the floating, aluminum frame designs that his company produces. Based in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Cox has multiple crews working the local lakes in southern Virginia.

“I started building docks at Leesville Lake in 2006. We are dealers for Wahoo Docks. This is the biggest brand in aluminum docks in the United States, both commercial and residential,” Cox explained in a recent interview. “And they’re the biggest brand because they make the best product. I’m sure people will look at competing products side by side on the lake. And they’ll almost always buy ours, because they see it’s a better product.”

Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake combine to form the Smith Mountain Pumped Storage Project - a hydroelectric project operated by Appalachian Power.

“They make money through hydroelectric power generation by letting water out of Smith Mountain Lake down into into Leesville,” Cox said. “And then they pump it back up and do it over again.”

The typical water fluctuations at Smith Mountain Lake - roughly two feet - are much less than at Leesville Lake, where the fluctuations can be as much as 13 feet. As a result, floating docks have become particularly popular at Leesville

Lake, and are growing in popularity at Smith Mountain Lake.

“People call these floating docks “floaters,” and it’s kind of a derogatory term, because they bounce around and they move and you walk on them, and it’s not a real dock,” Cox explained. “Real docks are made of wood and fixed on piles.”

Although steel frame floating docks are possible, there aren’t any dealers in the area who provide steel frame docks. Cox’s specialty is aluminum frame floating docks, which provide a number of advantages for lakeside residents and commercial interests over traditional fixed wooden docks.

“You can do wood. You can do steel, but nobody does steel around Leesville,” Cox said. “Or you can do aluminum, and aluminum is best. It’s light. It doesn’t rust, like steel. It doesn’t rot like wood. It is just a superior product for docks.”

The frame of the dock structure is marine-grade aluminum, designed to withstand weathering, while the sheet metal under the primary decking is a powder coated steel. There are many decking options, based on a client’s taste and budget. Concrete decking floating docks are even an option, although those are primarily larger commercial jobs.

“The structure is aluminum and it’s 6061-T6 which is the the marine grade for keeping it from weathering,” Cox explained. “The sheet metal we use is steel - powder coated steel - and then the decking is whatever people want it to be. You can have tropical hardwoods. You can have composite. You can have aluminum. You can even have concrete out there.”

Cox explained that the permitting process is the same for floating docks at both Leesville and Smith Mountain Lakes.

“Appalachian Power wants a survey,” Cox explained. “They care about how far out in the lake the dock goes, and how big it is. It’s the same rules for docks at Leesville Lake as Smith

Mountain Lake - it is the same process.”

With floating docks, residents do not have to worry about sudden, significant fluctuations based on either local droughts or local flooding, which have caused problems in the past for local lakeside property owners.

“The difference (with floating docks compared to fixed docks) is the dock moves up and down with the water. And the downside of a floating dock, is it is more susceptible to boat wake. But the dock is always right there,” Cox explained. “At Smith Mountain Lake, when there’s droughts, they’ve got thousands of people with their boats hanging in the lift and can’t get their boat to the water. Then you have other situations at Smith Mountain Lake where you’ve had flooding, and you’ve had people having to put water in their boat to keep it from going through the roof of the dock.

“When the whole dock floats, the decking is always two feet from the water. The boat lift is always right there. So high water, low water, it doesn’t matter,” Cox added.

Another advantage to floating docks over fixed docksparticularly in a man-made lakes such as Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake - is the fact that the docks can be positioned anywhere, and are not dependent on lakebed conditions, which are much different from place to place going around the lakes.

“An advantage for floating docks at Smith Mountain Lake is in places typically further up the lake, where you have either very deep water, or you have a very rocky bottom, where it’s hard to drive piles,” Cox said. “I know of one place at Smith Mountain Lake, they had a fixed dock built on steel piles. And the whole thing just fell over one day. With a floating dock, places like that, where you’re on hard rock or deep water where you can’t drive piles, you can still have a floating dock, where it would be terrible having a fixed dock. You’ve got different conditions in the ground.”

“For a while, I was using a crane and a drop hammer. There’s some places where I could drive a timber pile, like a telephone pole. 25 feet,” Cox continued. “There’s other places where I could only drive a steel pile nine inches. I’m dropping a 2000 pound hammer 10 feet, and it held. It’s hard rock. With a floating dock, particularly at Smith Mountain Lake, you’ve got this wonderful opportunity to work around that problem by having the dock float and be attached to shore with cable anchoring or stiff arm anchoring. You don’t have to drive piles at all.”

Cox explained the different types of floating docks that Lakeside Services is able to produce, and the different types of cabling that holds the dock in place along the shoreline.

“There are several ways to do it,” Cox said. “One way is

with pile anchoring, where the dock moves up and down next to the piles. And so you have a pile hoop, or pile guide. The piles are driven into the lake bed and the dock moves up and down next to it. So that’s one way. Another way is cable anchoring, where the gangway pushes the dock out from shore, and then you have a cable on each side keeping center. Another way is what we call stiff arm anchoring, which is how I like to do it. With bigger docks and rocky areas, is if you can imagine holding out a dinner platter serving tray in both hands, lock your elbows. These are stiff arms. So these arms, pull the dock out away from shore. And then you have cables as an X brace between the arms that keep it centered left and right.”

“At places like Smith Mountain Lake, you can anchor straight to the bottom. But it’s more expensive, because now you need a diver, or you need somebody to put a great big weight on the bottom. And that’s usually only used for for commercial jobs. I’ve only done it for one residential job,” he continued. “At Leesville (Lake) it’s not practical, just because you’ve got 13 foot fluctuations (in lake depth levels).”

Unlike many businesses that were adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lakeside Services saw a boom in dock construction, as local residents sought to take advantage of the company’s lightweight frames, precision

anchoring, and first-class product to get their own floating docks along Smith Mountain and Leesville Lakes.

“We’ve seen a huge increase at Smith Mountain Lake, and to a lesser extent at least because of COVID,” Cox said. “And you think about that, here’s why. So when COVID hit, you’d think it was the extra income from the stimulus checks, and that’s not enough for a dock. What what happened is all these people that had office jobs in Washington, DC, New Jersey and New York, and Raleigh, the other big cities, suddenly they’re having to work from home because of COVID.”

“They start thinking to themselves, ‘Well, gee, if I’m going to work from home, why am I here in New Jersey? And they start looking at property and lo and behold, here’s Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake,” he continued.

“It’s driving distance from New York and New Jersey - it’s a haul, but you can do it - Baltimore, Washington, Raleigh. It’s driving distance. And it’s beautiful. It’s nice, and oh my god, it’s cheap compared to New Jersey. And suddenly, it’s like, ‘Wow, why am I working from home and jersey, when I can get the lake? Oh, my goodness.’ And so it sparked a housing boom at Smith Mountain Lake, and a dock building boom. Where COVID killed some businesses, it was great for the home builders and the dock builders, because there’s this influx of people fleeing COVID. It’s beautiful here. And

it’s a bargain.”

Along with the practicality of a floating dock comes versatility. Residents can take a floating dock with them when they move, among other things.

“Anything you can do on a fixed dock, you can do in a floating dock. And the additional advantage, you don’t necessarily need piles, but let’s say you move. You sell your house. Somebody comes in and makes you an offer you can’t refuse on the house. You buy another piece of property down the way, but you love your dock. You take the dock with you. You just unhook it from shore, and have a dock builder float it down and reattach it. it’s kind of like Legos. You can always add in if you if you plan for it.”

For those residents who may be interested in pursuing one of Wahoo’s floating docks, Cox strongly recommends starting the process the summer prior.

Due to scheduling backlogs and the process for getting permitting with Appalachian Power, it can take several months to get a dock completed from start to finish.

“The biggest timeline issue is Appalachian Power,” Cox explained. “It seems like six months is the norm. The new regulations, everybody has to get a survey. What Appalachian Power actually requires is the terrain under the water, especially if you’re on a cove. They have a seven-page

direction on how to do this. You’re only allowed to go onethird of the way out on the cove. Figuring out where that onethird line is, is very complicated. So the surveyor has to do a survey under the water, and map out what is the buildable area. If you’re smart, you’ll have the surveyor measure, too. That tells you if you need a 20-foot walkway to get out to the dock way, or 30 or 40 feet.”

“The first step is the customer would tell me where the property is,” he continued. “And I would look at it online on the GIS section of the website for whatever county the property is in. And then I would come out and look at it. And I would see things like how rocky is it? Is it sand, or is it dirt? Is it soft rock, or is it hard rock? And I would look at the other docks around. Are the other docks on on timber piles, or are they on steel piles? Or are they floating docks? Seeing what other people have is a good indicator (of what’s possible nearby). If somebody says can I get a permit? Well, does the lot to your left have a dock? Yes. Does the dock does a lot to your right have a dock? Yes, then you’ve probably can get a permit. If it’s accessible, and the neighboring properties have docks, that’s a real good sign. So then I would say yes, I think this dock, I think you’ll get a permit if you apply. Go ahead and spend the money on a survey.”

“Step two is the surveyor coming in and doing the survey

for a dock. The surveyor comes back to me and says, ‘This is how wide the property is, so this is the amount of room you have to play with what kind of dock these people want. So then I would go back to the customer and say, ‘Look, we’ve got lots of room, or we’ve got a little room, but what are you looking for? Do you want to dock the boat? Do you want to be over the boat?”

“So stage one is we do a site visit to make sure that you know we can get a permit. Stage two is a survey. Stage three, we design a floor plan layout, we agree on a price and various trim options. And then we help them fill out the permit application for Appalachian Power and they send it off. And then there’s a a point of decision at that point. If we feel good about the permit - you know for sure it’s a slam dunk with the permit - we’ll say go ahead, sign a contract, make your deposit, and we’ll place the order with the factory.”

“The permit is the biggest time question,” Cox added. “Once the permits are issued, wherever the dock is in the system with the factory, whatever their next available slot is (is when the dock will be constructed). There are times when the factory was booked three weeks out, and there are times when it was six months out. So if I order a dock with the factory in March, it’s going to be July probably before they can fabricate it. But if I order a doc in November, they can have it ready in December. It’s just all about time a year and demand.”

Although some lake residents prefer the idea of an upper deck to their docks, Cox actually advises against an upper deck due to concerns about heat and lack of shading.

“People like the idea of upper deck dock design, but the reality is they’re hot. And so the people that have them are only out there in the early mornings and late evenings. What’s actually valuable is shade. So when someone says look I want an upper deck, my first answer is no you don’t. What’s what’s more valuable is shade. So build you a sundeck at the lower level. You’ve got the sun, and you can jump in the water. Now you’ve made it much more functional for less money than doing it as an upper deck.”

Lakeside Designs has the capability to create a virtual rendering of a proposed dock project, which gives consumers a very good idea of what they’re doing before construction begins.

“We’ve got new software. We can do a 3D rendering of the dock, which is pretty cool,” Cox explained. “When they’re happy with the floor plan and the basic price for no frills, then we can start looking at things like how fancy do you want it? They can do powder-coated roof poles. They can do powdercoated reframe. You can do tropical hardwood decking. You can do composite decking. You can take whatever decking you have that you walk on and wrap it around the frame, so you can’t see the frame at all. You can wrap it around the roof poles. You can wrap it around the roof frame. What kind of railing do you like? Do you want picket railings? You want to line railing? Do you want smoked glass? There’s glass cable.

You know, there’s just dozens of options, different colors and styles. You can really personalize this. If you really want to spend money, you could put in a waterslide.”

Cox and Wahoo Docks prides themselves on providing the community a superior product with outstanding customer service.

“My job is is to just to give the customer something that will meet their needs at a price they can afford. And and have them proud of it,” he said. ““It’s a great product with a fabulous manufacturer, and they’ve been around for decades. We’ve got a 20 year structural warranty. Tell me tell me how long the warranty is on your new house? Your new car? Virginia state law for warranties is a year. If somebody comes in and builds you a stick-built dock, they’re only required to warranty their work for a year. But here’s our factory (at Wahoo Docks) providing a 20 year warranty. To me, that’s incredible.”

For more information about Lakeside Services and the docks they provide to residents throughout the Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake regions, visit lakesideservices.com or call 434-532-5333. •

Sea Tow Smith Mountain Lake

Featured on Weather Channel’s “Deep Water Salvage”

Story by Adam Powell Photography Contributed

Alocal business that specializes in helping stranded local boat owners and assisting with the removal of sunken vessels throughout Smith Mountain Lake was showcased on the season finale of The Weather Channel’s “Deep Water Salvage” on August 7.

Rick and Nancy Ellett of Sea Tow Smith Mountain Lake joined forces with a dive team from Lake Hickory Scuba in North Carolina to raise a nearly 40-year-old 28-foot cabin cruiser that recently sank into the lake adjacent to a dock near channel marker R22.

“It was sunk at the docks. It looks like a bilge pump had failed. It was a 28-foot 1984 Carver cabin cruiser (that had sunk). The bow was still out of the water,” said Sea Tow’s Rick Ellett in a recent interview, adding that the water depth was approximately 12 feet at the stern of the sunken vessel. “We contracted divers out of Lake Hickory, North Carolina. They came up and helped us, gave us a hand. We got that one up and got it hauled out for disposal.”

Sea Tow SML has raised numerous boats throughout Smith Mountain Lake this year, with the Lake Hickory Scuba team

providing assistance on half of those jobs.

Sea Tow SML has done a number of dramatic jobs over the years, including one that involved a vessel that had gotten stuck to the edge of a dam, and was on the verge of going down a waterfall.

“We have done this year eight of these such recoveries,” said co-owner Nancy Ellett. “Four of them, we had the Lake Hickory divers come. The other four, we did with our Sea Tow team here.”

“We’ve recovered boats anywhere from a jet ski to 45-foot boats,” she continued. “We’ve done cruisers, house boats, roundabouts, and sailboats, although there’s a little bit of danger with sailboats. Because when you go to raise a sailboat with lift bags under it, you’ve got to make sure you’re doing them level, so that mast doesn’t fall over and hit somebody, because it could kill them. We’ve had a couple of boats that have sank that turned upside down. That’s a little more tricky.”

The recovery project filmed for Deep Water Salvage took place in early May, shortly after the owner of the sunken cabin cruiser reached out to Sea Tow Smith Mountain Lake for assistance.

The Elletts got in touch with the folks at Lake Hickory

Scuba, who agreed to come up to Smith Mountain Lake for the recovery. A single camera operator with a drone filmed the recovery for Deep Water Salvage. Due to the fact that there was just one camera operator, the television production did not get in the way of the vessel retrieval efforts.

“It was one guy with a camera,” Mr. Ellett said of the video production.

“He also had a drone. He did a couple of video interviews,” Mrs. Ellett added.

The divers from Lake Hickory Scuba dove underneath the sunken vessel and positioned airbags in various strategic places around the footprint of the cabin cruiser. When the bags were filled with air, they slowly raised the sunken vessel out of the mud and back up to the water surface.

It’s a painstaking process, as the air levels in the bags must be distributed evenly in order to avoid the sunken boat flipping over back onto the lakebed.

“You’ve got to get lift bags under it. We had four lift bags on that boat, as I recall. Two 4,000 lift bags and two 2,000 pound bags,” Rick Ellett said. “They (Lake Hickory Scuba) use all of our equipment, except for their dive gear.”

“That was the job of the divers,” added Nancy Ellett. “They have be able to go down there, place the lift bags, put straps

around them to be able to hold them to the boat, and once they get that done, the lift bags are inflated. All of the equipment is ours - the lift bags, the straps, the compressors, pumps, manifolds. Everything we need to use is ours. The divers just came to strictly go down and attach everything for us. You’ve got to watch it and inflate it evenly, so you don’t turn the boat. Recoveries can be dangerous, because you have divers underneath the boat. If something goes wrong, they could still be under that boat.”

“The reason we like the Lake Hickory Scuba divers is because they are very professional,” Mrs.  Ellett added. “They work well with our captains. They have the proper equipment. They have underwater headsets, where they can communicate with one of their team members, who stays on the dock. So if something goes wrong, there’s communication immediately.”

Although the Deep Water Salvage project mostly went according to plan, a strap on one of the lift bags broke during the rising of the vessel. The broken strap brought a little drama to the production of the television show.

“One of the lift straps broke,” Mrs. Ellett indicated. “And when that happens, it starts going back down. Then you have to start all over, and rig it with different straps and start raising it again. The Deep Water Salvage crew, they loved that.

Once the Sea Tow and Lake Hickory Scuba crews successfully rose the sunken vessel, shown above, it was towed along Smith Mountain Lake to an adjacent location for final disposal. The project was completed in a single day, over a period of several hours. On previous page, crews from Sea Tow SML and Lake Hickory Scuba prepare to go down and pull a nearly 40-year-old 28-foot cabin cruiser that sank into Smith Mountain Lake adjacent to a dock near channel marker R22. Lake Hickory Scuba divers placed air bags underneath the sunken vessel, which were then inflated to rise the vessel to the surface.

Because they like to do shows when things go wrong.”

Once the vessel was raised up to the water surface, a combination of three pumps - two two-inch pumps and a three-inch pump - began pumping water out of the vessel. After the water was removed from the vessel, it was towed to an adjacent location down the lake for final disposal.

“Once we raise them up with those lift bags, then we’ve got to put pumps on them. We start pumping them out,” Mrs. Ellett said. “You’ve got to pump all the water out of it. Then you’ve got to tow it somewhere.”

The Elletts explained that it’s important for anyone desiring to have a vessel raised up from the lake to have a plan in place for what will happen to the vessel once it is raised.

“Is it going to be destroyed, or is it going to be refurbished? You’ve got to have a plan with what you’re going to do with it once you get it up,” she said.

Nancy Ellett also recommended that boaters have marine insurance to cover the potential costs of having to raise a sunken vessel. And for those who don’t live at the lake yearround, it’s always a good idea to have a friend or relative keep an eye on your boat, especially if it’s still sitting in the water.

“They should have a good marine insurance policy to cover such costs, because they are very expensive,” she explained.

“Particularly if there is any kind of an oil spill. When we recover a boat like that, we always have absorbent pads that we put all around the engine compartment. Because as you start raising it, those oils sometimes start coming up.”

“People who particularly live out of town, and aren’t here to look at their boats every day, they need to have somebody paying attention. Because once they start going down, they’re gone,” she continued.

Seeing their work chronicled on The Weather Channel was exciting for the Elletts and Sea Tow Smith Mountain Lake staff, and they’ve experienced some very interesting things over the years in their efforts to raise vessels that are no longer seaworthy. But their primary focus remains on assisting local boaters along the lake with everything from starting up an inoperable motor to bringing gas if a vessel runs out.

As their name suggests, Sea Tow also offers tows for those vessels that cannot be restarted right away.

“Our main function is assistance out on the lake. Tows, jump starts, fuel drops, and assistance to boaters to enhance their boating experience. We’re like peace of mind on the water,” Rick Ellett said. •

A single-camera operator came to Smith Mountain Lake this past spring to film the efforts of Sea Tow SML and Lake Hickory Scuba to retrieve a sunken vessel in Smith Mountain Lake. The footage of the retrieval of the vessel was featured on an episode of Deep Water Salvage on The Weather Channel.

Dining information sourced from Smith Mountain Lake Visitor’s Guide.

Drifter’s at SML, formerly Waller’s , is a great place to bring the whole family!

Wake Cafe

EDUCATION

DIRECTORY

Education information sourced from Smith Mountain Lake Visitor’s Guide.

HEALTHCARE

DIRECTORY

Healthcare information sourced from Smith Mountain Lake Visitor’s Guide.

BodyShoppeFitnessLLC+AllCore360

Carilion Wellness Westlake

The Centre at VitaZen