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30 years later, Lake McIntosh gets OKTue, 07/17/2007 - 4:53pm
By: John Thompson
It was a long journey for the final piece of Fayette County’s water puzzle. After 30 years of jumping through government hurdles, Lake McIntosh received its final permit from the Army Corps of Engineers last week. The 650-acre reservoir will be located on Line Creek south of Ga. Highway 54, forming a new reservoir straddling the boundary of Fayette and Coweta counties. The site of the project was first identified as a possible lake site in the 1960s by developers who later abandoned the idea of building a lake when difficulties acquiring land were encountered. “The true credit goes to those people who came before us,” said Fayette Commission Chairman Jack Smith during Thursday’s commission meeting. For decades, county commissions have hoped that last week’s announcement was just around the corner. Earlier this summer, Fayette County learned that there was still another bureaucratic hang-up and got busy on the phone lines. “Rep. Lynn Westmoreland really helped us get the permit,” Smith said. The proposed reservoir will yield 10.4 millions gallons per day for drinking water that will be processed at the county-owned Crosstown Water Treatment Plant on TDK Boulevard in Peachtree City, said county officials in a press release. After approval and final review of the plans, more visible work will begin. The construction of the lake and dam and bringing the facility to full operational status is estimated to take nearly four years. “A special debt of gratitude is owed by the citizens of Fayette County to Bill McNally for spearheading this project over many, many years, to the past and present members of the Fayette County Water Committee and all those commissioners who, over those same years, kept the hope alive that someday we would reach this summit,” Smith said in the press release. Thursday’s announcement marks the final step in a long and arduous process that first started in the 1970s. In March 2002 county officials filed for a federal environmental permit to build the lake. In 2003, a rendering of the lake’s proposed location showed the lake would border Peachtree City’s Planterra Ridge subdivision on three sides. In 2004, the county’s consulting engineer guessed that the project cost could run around $10 million. The county already owns the land needed for the lake pool and has also acquired other wetlands to protect as mitigation for the ecological impact of the project. In 2007, the county currently has a capacity of producing 20.3 million gallons a day on its own to support a population of up to 142,960, meaning that the addition of the 650-acre Lake McIntosh will support more than 200,000 people living in Fayette. login to post comments
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