On Sunday, March 11 and Sunday, March 18, 32 student volunteers from McIntosh High School Adopt-A-Stream (AAS) canvassed portions of Smokerise, Stoneybrook, Greer’s Mountain, Interlochen, Larkins Landing, Parkway Estates, and other subdivisions along Kedron Drive, Blue Smoke Trail and Flat Creek Road with information for homeowners vital to keeping area streams and lakes healthy. All together, they spent over 120 hours going door to door in the neighborhoods.

The student volunteers spoke with 483 individual homeowners and left information for another 354 unavailable homeowners concerning the importance of controlling residential fertilizer and pesticide use. The goal is to reduce nonpoint source pollution (runoff) of the waterways by eliminating the overuse of lawn chemicals, resisting applying them prior to forecasted major weather incidents (torrential rain downpours), and stopping the accidental overspray/application of lawn chemicals on impervious surfaces (driveways, walkways, patios and streets). The subdivisions involved are in the Flat Creek watershed that surround Lake Kedron in Peachtree City. Flat Creek had experienced some unusual biological conditions during the heavy rain years of 2004 and 2005 that concerned volunteers testing all along Flat Creek down stream and upstream from the Lake. All total, 837 homeowners were either directly or indirectly contacted to help prevent ecological stress on area lakes and streams. Homeowners were all given contact telephone numbers in case of questions or concern. This is the second year of the door-to-door public education program. To date, almost 1500 residents of Peachtree City have been approached about how to help insure the environmental health of area waterways.

McIntosh High School AAS Program has over forty students involved in conducting monthly chemical and quarterly biological testing at ten different locations throughout the watershed; six of these sites are on Flat Creek from when the stream enters the city limits, until it leaves the city. All AAS participants are annually Quality Assured/Quality Control certified by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division. Over the four years since the local programs founding, over 125 young people have been trained and utilized as water quality monitors. The program is conducted in close collaboration with the Peachtree City government, the Peachtree City Rotary Club and the Line Creek Association.

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