 At its largest extent, the lake covered about , but years of upstream industrial waste and discharge filled about 90 percent of the lake with sediment so toxic that the lake was classified as a Superfund site.In 2000 the Conestee Foundation, a 501(c)(3) conservation organization, was formed to lead the revitalization of the lake as a wetlands through the development of the nature preserve, and the foundation used settlement funds from a June 1996 Colonial Pipeline spill to purchase the lake and the dam.Once safety studies of the brownfield were complete, it was determined that no harm would result if the toxic sediment were left in place.