On Saturday, May 6, Sunday, May 7 and Saturday, May 13, twenty-one student volunteers from McIntosh High School Adopt-A-Stream (AAS) canvassed portions of Smokerise, Stoneybrook, The Peninsula, Kedron Hills, North Cover, Interlochen, Larkins Landing, The Point, Sutton’s Cove, St. Simon’s Cove, Stoneacre and Southern Shore subdivisions with information for homeowners vital to keepings area streams and lakes healthy. All together they spent 81 hours going door to door in the neighborhoods.

The student volunteers spoke with 295 individual homeowners and left information for another 351 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 immediately surround Lake Kedron in Peachtree City. Flat Creek had experienced some unusual biological conditions in the last nine months that concerned volunteers testing all along Flat Creek down stream and upstream from the lake. In total, 646 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 concerns.

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.