The burning of cleared vegetation at the Lake McIntosh site is slated to begin this week and continue through April 30. Peachtree City officials have worried about the effects the residual smoke might have on nearby homes and businesses, but Fayette County officials anticipate no such problems.
The material is being burned on the Coweta County portion of the property. Residents who experience problems with smoke are urged to call the Fayette County Water System at 770-461-1146 or email water@fayettecountyga.gov.
In December, Peachtree City Fire Chief Ed Eiswerth suggested that the smoke will lead to multiple calls to Fayette’s 911 center. Eiswerth noted that there is a significant amount of material to be burned.
Whatever is not burned as of April 30 will be burned in the fall, city officials said this week.
Lake McIntosh is a reservoir project of the Fayette County Water System, and it will be created with a dam across Line Creek. The county must maintain the existing flows of Line Creek through construction and beyond. The lake will be filled by rainfall, not by the creek itself.
Once operational, the lake will produce more than 10 million gallons a day of drinking water. The construction bid was awarded to Brad Cole Construction for $8.23 million, well short of the estimated cost of $10 million.
The lake will stretch just south of Ga. Highway 54 West southward toward Falcon Field Airport. It will be located along Line Creek though most of the land is in the jurisdiction of Coweta County. The land was purchased back in the 1970s and is owned by Fayette County.
Lake McIntosh was supposed to be the county’s first reservoir back in the 1970s, but regulatory hurdles and other issues put it on the back-burner as Lake Kedron and Lake Horton were built instead.
