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Officials: It smells fishy, but Lake Peachtree is OK after fish kill

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

The dead fish that began washing ashore on Lake Peachtree Monday afternoon were not killed by toxic chemicals, officials have determined.

Instead, the shad were victims of a change in the water temperature, according to a state biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, said Scott Hicks, Peachtree City’s public works superintendent.

The temperature change caused a dramatic drop in the oxygen content of the water, Hicks said. Although the fish weren’t counted, “There were a lot of them,” Hicks said.

Lake Peachtree, which serves as a drinking water reservoir for the county water system, will not experience water quality problems as a result of the fish kill, officials said.

As soon as the dead fish were reported, the pump station pulling water from the lake was shut down as a precaution, just in case something else killed the fish, said Water System Director Tony Parrott.

The county can get by temporarily without water from Lake Peachtree because of the county’s other water sources, Parrott said.

The pump station at Lake Peachtree remained out of service Tuesday afternoon as workers removed fish from the water, Parrott said. Once the lake is cleaned up, the pump station will be reactivated, Parrott said.

“It’s not unusual for this to happen,” Parrott said. “It’s weather related.”

Hicks, who has been with the city for nearly 20 years, said he has seen the problem crop up three or four times during his tenure.

The original reports Monday were that catfish and bream were killed, but Hicks went to the scene and saw it was only bream instead, he said. The county water department and city sewer department were notified along with DNR, Hicks said.

The DNR biologist confirmed the type of fish and what killed them, Hicks said. “It’s a process of nature.”