Official finish date for Lake Peachtree: Oct. 25; Rapson says it’ll be November
Heavy rains in Fayette County over the past two months will mean more time and more money with regard to the Lake Peachtree dredging project.
The Fayette County Board of Commissioners voted at its Sept. 10 regular meeting to approve a $221,083 change order, boosting the contract with Massana Construction from $1,449,140 to $1,670,223. The added cost was attributed to the 52 days of rain that had accumulated up to the time of the BOC meeting, which was conducted as rain poured outside the county administrative complex.
The revised timeline shows dredging completed inside the lake by Oct. 19 and the overall project finished by Oct. 25. However, County Manager Steve Rapson told the commissioners that he expects the project to stretch to the beginning of November.
Since the last time the project timeline was extended, “we’ve had four major rain events,” Rapson said.
Two other factors to which the change order was attributed were additional rock required for road-bed construction and an expansion of the project’s scope of services to include dredging at the Pinecrest boat ramp, which county officials said would save Peachtree City $28,000.
Commissioner Steve Brown said he gets “four calls a day” about the dredging.
“There have been a lot of anxious people on this project,” he said. “I get it. It’s been a long, arduous process. But 52 days of rain is extraordinary for any outdoor project.”
“We’re doing the best we can with this, but ask any engineer or contractor who does work like this and they will tell you that rarely do you see this kind of rain around a project,” said Brown.
Once the project is complete, the total sediment excavation is expected to be 64,000 cubic yards. To put it in perspective, that amount of dirt can cover an entire acre piled five stories high.
Chairman Charles Oddo summed up his take on the rain situation this way: “This is the first year I’ve had a sprinkler system and I didn’t need it.”
Brown pointed out that the rainfall itself is not the only contributor to the delay.
“It’s the rising water table that causes the problem,” he said. “When they start getting into the silt, they run into water because of the rising water table. The collective flow of all the rain coming into that basin is raising the water table, and it creates significant problems.”
Brown said that the rising water table causes work on the project to stop even after the rain has stopped because the sediment cannot be moved.
“Tomorrow it may not be raining, and a lot of people will be asking, ‘Why aren’t they out there doing what they’re supposed to be doing?’ It’s because the water table is still up to the level of the sediment and they cannot work in that capacity,” he said.
The change order allows for additional gravel to be brought out, which Brown said is the only way to get the vehicles on and off the basin without sinking significantly.
