Mayor and Peachtree City Council, you need to stop dragging your collective feet and take whatever actions required to return Lake Peachtree to its former state.
I can’t speak for others, but this summer will be remembered as the one without:
The summer without the afternoon breezes that are generated daily by the pressure difference between the water and the land.
The summer without my after-work respite flipping flies and plugs for bream and bass and crappie.
The summer without the fireworks over the water.
The summer without kayaks and canoes and kids playing in the water by the boat docks.
The summer without a meditating gaze across the water from the edge of a dock once there and now gone.
The summer without the evening strolls shared with the tenor tree frogs’ and bass bull frogs’ chorus.
The summer without the “Ahhhh …” always felt when returning home from a trip and driving past the City Hall and over the 54 bridge with the whole lake laid out below.
The summer without the same pride for my town!
The Sundowner Club still meets and they maintain their positive outlook, but their numbers seem down. Otherwise I sense just a bit more negativity since the water went away. I know my outlook and my activity level has suffered.
Years of drought were survived by this lake at the cost of Kedron and by design. Even as Lake Allatoona dropped, our lake remained. Now that we are back to normal rains where the water in the lake would turn over every week or two, we have instead a weed field, vermin, mud flats, no dock, police tape, and excuses.
Enough! Lake Peachtree is more than just a lake. It was designed to be the center heart of this place.
If you take the time to look up from your budget spreadsheets you would see that this is so easily remedied. It’s not like we are trying to build a pipeline across seven states.
No more back and forth with this or that agency — fix the problem and let the lawyers work it out later.
It’s like your roof has a hole in it and you are arguing about whose tree put the hole there. This should be very straightforward dam repair that requires cement trucks, and, if the state of Georgia insists, rebar.
We have the means, let’s get it done. No more PTC summers without.
Alan Felts
Peachtree City, Ga.
