On Nov. 6, at its Outdoor Hospitality Conference in Oklahoma City, Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve received Large Park of the Year and Plan-It Green Park of the Year awards. This marks the fifth year Santee Lakes received Park of the Year and the ninth year for Plan-It Green Park of the Year. The OHI Awards of Excellence serve as a platform to acknowledge and appreciate the exemplary efforts of individuals, businesses, and parks within the outdoor hospitality community. These awards encompass various categories, recognizing excellence in areas such as campground operations, customer service, marketing, innovation, environmental stewardship, and community involvement. By honoring exceptional achievements.
“Santee Lakes is honored to be named the National 2024 Large Park of the Year and Plan-it Green Park of the Year award at the Outdoor Hospitality Industry Annual Conference and Awards of Excellence ceremony. This national recognition highlights our team’s commitment to enhancing the lives of our guests through exceptional camping and recreation experiences,” said Cory Kading, Park & Recreation Director at Santee Lakes in a press release.
A few of the highlights that brought recognition were Santee Lakes’ guest experiences, amenities, guest reviews, generating traffic to the facility, and its use of social media to generate attention to the park.
For the Plan-It Green award, that recognizes campgrounds that practice green initiatives, some of the projects making Santee Lakes green include:
Two million gallons of water daily is recycled at its Water Reclamation Facility and the water flows through Santee Lakes and creates a recreation area that greets more than 760,000 visitors annually. The water recycling project diverts 2 million gallons of partially treated sewage from entering the Pacific Ocean every day, 730 million gallons every year.
Solar RV Storage Project with 14,000 solar arrays attached to RV storage units, which generate 50% of the campground energy needs while providing high demand RV storage facilities.
Its recycling program has been successful in diverting ten tons of waste from entering local landfills annually. By separating green waste, it diverts another 50 tons each year.
Its Urban Forestry Program, with 2,103 trees in 53 varieties, absorbs 97,000 lbs. of carbon every year.
Once a gravel mine, Santee Lakes was created to clean the wastewater of the surrounding city of Santee and send the treated water from our Water Recycling Facility to other parts of Santee for landscape irrigation and to divert it from going into the Pacific Ocean polluted. Now a series of seven lakes, Santee Lakes provides camping, fishing, boating, special events, picnic venues, and other recreation opportunities. The Park welcomes over 650,000 guests per year.
