"....Greenville Water System says one route proposed for a Duke Energy transmission line project that cuts through the water system’s watershed could threaten water quality for its 500,000 customers. Water system leaders have expressed concern over the quality of water in its North Saluda Watershed in northern Greenville County if Duke Energy clear-cuts a path through the protected watershed to install transmission towers and maintains the lines using herbicides that could leach into the reservoir. The water system also raised legal questions about Duke Energy’s authority to condemn property in the Greenville County watershed to build the transmission line project. The legal question was raised in a letter filed Thursday to the South Carolina Public Service Commission by Greenville Water Chairman Phillip Kilgore and CEO David Bereskin. “We have serious questions whether Duke Energy has legal right to the property owned by Greenville Water (or the City of Greenville),” they said..... .....Protecting the 30,000 acres of old-growth forests that surround the North Saluda and Table Rock reservoirs from any outside incursion has been key to the system’s ability to provide high quality water to its customers, they said. For three of the past four years, Greenville Water has been named the best-tasting water in South Carolina. In 2011, it was named the best-tasting water in the country by the American Water Works Association. The watersheds have been protected with a conservation easement with The Nature Conservancy since 1992 and no development has been allowed in the easement, leaving it nearly 100 percent forested, which allows the mountain water to be naturally filtered before it reaches the reservoirs. “Greenville Water has a significant concern that the construction of the right-of-way will result in essentially clear-cutting a swath of wooded areas,” the letter said. Duke Energy’s use of herbicides or other chemicals to maintain 150-foot-wide rights-of-way could degrade water quality and disrupt the natural filtration system that exists in the watershed, they wrote......" read more at the link below http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2015/09/01/greenville-water-duke-project-harm-water-quality/71538444/