Pathway Communities has agreed to reevaluate the extent of ground water contamination at the “Peach Pit,” a former construction landfill that has been closed.

An environmental activist and the Fayette County Commission have asked Pathway officials to reevaluate the extent of contamination at the site. Pathway wants the land annexed into Peachtree City, but concerns have arisen about whether the contamination has spread.

Back in 1994, carbon disulfide was found in ground water samples on the Peach Pit property. Those results were supplied to the state Environmental Protection Division (EPD), which determined that the contamination was not high enough to require that it be cleaned up.

EPD based that conclusion on information that was provided back then by Peachtree City Development Corporation (PCDC), the predecessor to Pathway Communities, which still owns the Peach Pit property.

Though the company is not required to retest or cleanup the contamination, Pathway decided to conduct the new round of environmental studies anyway, said Jerry Peterson, vice president of planning for Pathway.

“We may have done it on our own anyway,” Peterson said. “But we agreed to do it as a condition of the zoning. It wasn't really an issue.”

Environmental activist Dennis Chase said he is worried about the tests not going further than the ones performed in 1994.

The closest drinking well to the contaminated site was between one and two miles away, according to EPD records that were filed in 1994 by PCDC.

Those records indicated that no humans have been exposed to the carbon disulfide contamination. The records also showed that the source of the contamination was unknown.

The site was not well secured when it operated in the 70s and 80s and someone could have dumped the chemical there, Peterson said.

The property is still owned by Pathway, Peterson confirmed.

If someone decides to install a water well in the area, or if the West Village development constructs new homes closer to the Peach Pit site, the EPD might reevaluate the site, said Merrill Frazier, a site inspector for the EPD.

A reevaluation could possibly lead to the EPD requiring a clean up, Frazier said, although that possibility may be unlikely.

Pathway, however, doesn't plan to put in any wells or build homes closer than 300 feet to the Peach Pit, Peterson confirmed. That makes a new study by the EPD unlikely.

Pathway has already hired a firm to conduct new water tests downstream of the Peach Pit, Peterson said. If those tests show that more testing is needed, Pathway will conduct those tests also, he added.

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