Fayette County's water supply is not now in danger from siltation into the Lake Peachtree and Lake Kedron reservoirs, but extensive dredging could interrupt or seriously impact available water for a period of time, county administrator Billy Beckett said this week.

Nevertheless, Beckett added, the county is "committed to do what is required" in its agreement with Peachtree City to clean silt from the lakes. Discussions are under way, he said, between county and city attorneys to define specific parameters of the county's requirements, he said, "and we have to make decisions on behalf of the entire community, not just the residents on the lake."

Members of the Lake Peachtree Association are in constant contact with city officials, said Scott Powell, not only about who will dredge the lakes and when but about what the residents feel may be serious breaches in the city's enforcement of erosion control procedures. Powell cited a recent perpendicular pipe installation by the city, apparently designed to slow down silt-bearing water, on the east side of Hip Pocket Road between Loblolly Circle and Hilltop Drive. For several feet around the pipe, Powell pointed out, earth has collapsed and washed over a headwall and into a drainage canal that winds up in Lake Peachtree.

Powell also noted that there has been no action on cleaning up about 23,000 cubic yards of dirt that washed into Lake Kedron during apartment construction. He says he believes that while Peachtree City's erosion control regulations are strict and comprehensive, too many construction projects are going on simultaneously now for city inspectors to catch all the violations that lead to silting the lake.

"Neither the quantity nor the quality of the county water supply is threatened by siltation per se," Beckett said. "The capacity may be affected, or the problem may lie with whether silt contains harmful elements. Siltation occurs naturally in bodies of water, and can't be called pollution.

"The timing of dredging is critical," he continued. "The likelihood is that dredging would take away the county's ability to produce water for the period of the dredging, because the dredging area would have to be drained. The intake structure for Lake Kedron is in Lake Peachtree, so it would effectively take out both reservoirs. Barge dredging is impractical, because that method increases the turbidity of the water to the point that it is untreatable."

He added that the county had spent about $250,000 for cleaning a silt-trap north of the Ga. Highway 54 bridge just "a couple of years ago," and silt has built up in the trap to an ineffective point already. He said silt-bearing runoff is likely coming from developments in Peachtree City.

Beckett noted, "We are concerned about this problem. We may differ with the city on methods and timing, but we are trying to work it out. One way or another, the silt will be cleaned out."

Powell said he wonders about provisions in the 1985 agreement that seem to indicate that the county should maintain "stream and drainage inlets and appurtenant areas," some of which have become virtual wetlands because of siltation over the years. He cited the property of Mrs. Hope Miller on Hilltop Drive, where a boat-dock area on the drainage canal has become a land area thick with vegetation.

Mrs. Miller's late husband, attorney Charles Miller, corresponded extensively with the city in the early 1990's about the lake-silting problem.

Beckett said that one of the points under legal discussion is just how far into drainage inlets and streams should be cleaned and at whose expense.