Plans afoot to move Dragon Boats to Lake McIntosh

The Dragon Boat Race and International Festival hosted annually by the Peachtree City Rotary Club will be moving to the county’s new Lake McIntosh in the future.

The under-construction lake, meanwhile, is not yet ready to take on water but that is a good thing for the Rotary Club, as it allows for permanent buoys to be installed for the Dragon Boat races.

The Fayette County Commission signed off on the buoy installation, which is being funded by the Rotary Club.

The Dragon Boat races have been run on Lake Peachtree near Drake Field since their inception several years ago as a community festival.

Lake McIntosh is located on the western city limits at the end of TDK Boulevard, though much of the lakebed is actually in Coweta County on land that Fayette County purchased in the 1970s.

Construction on the dam for Lake McIntosh is about 95 percent complete and is expected to wrap up next month, according to Water System Director Tony Parrott.

Once the construction process is over, the lake can begin filling up, but that process will take some time because rainwater will be the primary source. That’s because the county is required to maintain the pre-construction stream flows of Line Creek even after the lake is “open for business.”