About five

miles northeast of Palmetto on Bear Creek, The South Fulton Municipal

Regional Water and Sewage Authority is planning to construct a drinking

water reservoir, a raw water intake structure, a dam and water treatment

facility to service the cities of Fairburn, Palmetto and Union City.

According to

a joint public notice from the Savannah District Corps of Engineers and

the State of Georgia, the 22.4 square mile area is seeing a lot of growth

and the board consisting of members Ralph Moore, Betty Hannah, Clark Boddie,

Adolph Snell, Jim Williams, James Harper and Alan Grindstaff have put

their heads together to crate a solution for future water and sewage needs

in South Fulton County.

A water supply

study was conducted in December of 1997 and yielded two potential sites

out of seven possible creeks. Bear Creek and Pea Creek seemed the most

likely.

The site along

Bear Creek was chosen to build the resevior which will provide 8 million

gallons of water per day and 11 million gallons a day by the year 2050.

The Water and

Sewage Authority intends to alleviate their activity in the area with

wetland preservation and enhancement, stream preservation and restoration

and buffer restoration. The proposed site include 16 perennial streams,

4 intermittent streams, 28 wetlands, 3 manmade open water areas and 6

ditches.

A bond issue

in conjunction with the Bear Creek project has also been discussed. The

sale of bonds are set for the week of October 15.