A spill

late Thursday afternoon sent an estimated 20,000 gallons

of sewage into Lake Peachtree near Ga. Highway 54.

The

incident occurred when a wastewater pump station failed,

according to the Peachtree City Water and Sewerage

Authority.

There was a

thunderstorm that afternoon, but WASA general manager

Larry Turner said Monday he does not think lightning or

electrical problems caused the spill.

"My

first reaction, and I hate to say this, is it may be

human error," he said.

contractor working on a radio transmission system being

installed at the site was conducting tests just before

the spill.

"I

think, when he left, he left the pumps in an `off'

position instead of an `on' position," said Turner.

A WASA

press release issued Friday morning said that the Fayette

County Water System was immediately notified, as were the

Fayette County Health Department and the Georgia

Department of Natural Resources' Environmental Protection

Division. Turner said the city of Peachtree City also was

notified.

Cleanup was

completed Friday.

Peachtree

City firefighters were the first to discover the spill,

having just been sent to the area for training, according

to Capt. Ed Eiswerth.

"On

their arrival they noticed the problem, and they called

the 911 center and started the ball rolling," said

Eiswerth.

The Fire

Department first noticed the problem at about 4:15 p.m.,

Turner said, and his department was contacted around

5:18, although the firefighters claimed to have tried to

reach WASA between 4:30 and 5.

"They

[Fire Department] said they tried and they couldn't get

through on our phones," Turner said. "But my

people here say they were sitting here - in fact, it

was a slow day because they were waiting for the storm to

blow over - and they had no phone calls."

A spokesman

at the Fayette County 911 center said a call from the

PCFD was logged in at 3:54 showing a "special

detail," which is how a sewage spill call would

probably be handled, but no more specific details were

available.

City public

information specialist Betsy Tyler confirmed that the

Fire Department called in the spill shortly after 4, then

called the Fayette County Water System before reaching

WASA about 5:12.

City

manager Jim Basinger was contacted, and by the time he

spoke with Turner and both went to the site, a crew was

there working on the problem.

Turner said

the spill was shut off at about 7:45 by one of his crews.

Since WASA received the call after 5, the person on call

had to come in and he was stuck in traffic at the time,

Turner said.

"I

don't have any employees that really live close by,"

said Turner. "We have on-call people and they

respond. He was in traffic on his way home and came

back."

Fayette

County was not withdrawing drinking water when the spill

took place, and still had not withdrawn any as of Monday

afternoon.

"The

demand was down because of the rain we received,"

Turner said of Fayette County's decision not to withdraw

water. "It had nothing to do with this."

The county,

depending on what the test results show, may decide to

make some modifications in its water treatment process,

Turner said.

After the

spill, the city put up some signs at the lake telling

residents not to swim or fish.

Tony

Parrott of the Fayette County Water System, who confirmed

that the county has not been drawing water because of

lower usage, said that the state recommended that they

use carbon in their treatment process at the plant, but

they're already set up to do that.

"The

fecal bacteria levels are lower now than they are at

other times of the year anyway," said Parrott.

Turner said

it has been mentioned in the past that some people would

like the various agencies involved to get together and

develop a policy of notification, but that has not been

done yet.

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