Residents

of the homes surrounding Lake Stevens, on Lester

Road off Ga. Highway 54 west between Peachtree

City and Fayetteville, say they don't know what

to do next.

"We

haven't decided what we want to do," said a

frustrated Jim Bass, who has made several trips

to Fayette County Commission and Fayetteville

City Council meetings in recent months to plead

the case of the homeowners.

City

Council last week told Bass and neighbor Jerry

Darby that there's nothing further the city can

do about silt that the neighbors believe is still

filling their lake, washed in from construction

sites nearby.

Last

November, the city Engineering Department placed

a stop work order on Stonebriar West subdivision,

upstream from the lake, citing erosion control

violations. In talks with developer Dan

Stinchcomb and builders in the subdivision, the

city stipulated that siltation in Stevens Lake be

cleaned up before the stop work order could be

lifted.

But

builders maintained that damage to the lake had

been minimal, and offered to pay a consultant to

conduct a survey. The city agreed to abide by the

survey results, lifting the stop work order if it

could be shown that the lake had not been

damaged.

The

consultant's report said that "there was no

significant siltation," said city engineer

Don Easterbrook.

Bass

said the consultant was unable to obtain a sample

from the part of the lake that had been most

severely affected, at the north end where a

stream that runs through the subdivision feeds

into the lake.

"We're

very dissatisfied with the report," Darby

told City Council. The report, he said, failed to

show "the silt that's in the lake even now

as we speak."

Bass

reminded council that a detention pond dam in the

subdivision broke last year, and contended that

the earthen dam must have washed into the lake.

"It's not there anymore. We know it went in

the lake," he said.

Mayor

Kenneth Steele said the city's hands are tied.

"The agreement was that a professional would

be hired to determine siltation, or not, of the

lake, and we would go along with the

findings," Steele said, adding that the

consultant was hired by the city, not the

developer, and his credentials were unassailable.

"As

a city we are kind of in a bind," he said.

If

the residents want to carry their fight any

further, it may have to be in the courts.

"You

still have your civil rights and your legal

rights to pursue things as necessary,"

Steele told Bass and Darby.

If

the neighbors decide to fight on, said Bass,

they'll have to pay about $4,000 to get another

survey done. Then, if the new survey shows that

there is significant silt in the lake, the two

surveys may simply cancel each other out.

"We'll

be back to square one," he said. "We'll

get together and talk about it. I don't know what

we'll do."

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