A spill late Thursday afternoon sent an estimated 20,000 gallons of sewage into Lake Peachtree near Ga. Highway 54.

The incident occurred when a wastewater pump station failed, according to the Peachtree City Water and Sewerage Authority.

There was a thunderstorm that afternoon, but WASA general manager Larry Turner said Monday he does not think lightning or electrical problems caused the spill.

“My first reaction, and I hate to say this, is it may be human error,” he said.

A contractor working on a radio transmission system being installed at the site was conducting tests just before the spill.

“I think, when he left, he left the pumps in an `off' position instead of an `on' position,” said Turner.

A WASA press release issued Friday morning said that the Fayette County Water System was immediately notified, as were the Fayette County Health Department and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Environmental Protection Division. Turner said the city of Peachtree City also was notified.

Cleanup was completed Friday.

Peachtree City firefighters were the first to discover the spill, having just been sent to the area for training, according to Capt. Ed Eiswerth.

“On their arrival they noticed the problem, and they called the 911 center and started the ball rolling,” said Eiswerth.

The Fire Department first noticed the problem at about 4:15 p.m., Turner said, and his department was contacted around 5:18, although the firefighters claimed to have tried to reach WASA between 4:30 and 5.

“They [Fire Department] said they tried and they couldn't get through on our phones,” Turner said. “But my people here say they were sitting here — in fact, it was a slow day because they were waiting for the storm to blow over – and they had no phone calls.”

A spokesman at the Fayette County 911 center said a call from the PCFD was logged in at 3:54 showing a “special detail,” which is how a sewage spill call would probably be handled, but no more specific details were available.

City public information specialist Betsy Tyler confirmed that the Fire Department called in the spill shortly after 4, then called the Fayette County Water System before reaching WASA about 5:12.

City manager Jim Basinger was contacted, and by the time he spoke with Turner and both went to the site, a crew was there working on the problem.

Turner said the spill was shut off at about 7:45 by one of his crews. Since WASA received the call after 5, the person on call had to come in and he was stuck in traffic at the time, Turner said.

“I don't have any employees that really live close by,” said Turner. “We have on-call people and they respond. He was in traffic on his way home and came back.”

Fayette County was not withdrawing drinking water when the spill took place, and still had not withdrawn any as of Monday afternoon.

“The demand was down because of the rain we received,” Turner said of Fayette County's decision not to withdraw water. “It had nothing to do with this.”

The county, depending on what the test results show, may decide to make some modifications in its water treatment process, Turner said.

After the spill, the city put up some signs at the lake telling residents not to swim or fish.

Tony Parrott of the Fayette County Water System, who confirmed that the county has not been drawing water because of lower usage, said that the state recommended that they use carbon in their treatment process at the plant, but they're already set up to do that.

“The fecal bacteria levels are lower now than they are at other times of the year anyway,” said Parrott.

Turner said it has been mentioned in the past that some people would like the various agencies involved to get together and develop a policy of notification, but that has not been done yet.

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