Fayette County

is doing a good job of keeping its watershed areas clean.

"Not too

bad, all in all," said Tony Parrott, director of the county Water

System, in presenting a report on environmental threats to watersheds

throughout metro Atlanta to the Water Committee last week.

The report

rates the environmental risk and actual contamination, using such factors

as the number of sources of contamination, the percentage of the under

construction and the percentage covered with pavement and buildings.

The Horton

Creek watershed in Fayette is arguably the cleanest in the metro area,

according to the report. It's the only watershed listed with no potential

sources of spills, and it has only 3.5 percent impervious surface and

only 1 percent under construction.

That watershed

is ranked low in environmental concerns. The only rankings given are low,

medium and high.

Fayette's only

high ranking is for the Flint River watershed, which is shared with Clayton

County. The Fayette side has 464 pollution sources, with 11 percent of

those rated as high-risk. Twenty-three percent are rated as medium-risk

and 66 percent low-risk.

Flat Creek,

Line Creek and Whitewater Creek all received medium or low rankings.

During the

last year, Fayette watersheds experienced six spills, all considered minor,

said Parrott.

Not surprisingly,

Atlanta's Chattahoochee River showed some of the highest risk, with 1,454

pollution sources, 55 percent of them considered medium- or high-risk,

21.7 percent of the land area paved over, and 374 sewer lines crossing

streams.

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