Fayetteville officials will

continue to study the value of repairing the dam on privately owned Lake

Pye to assist with flood control in the area.

The city has already taken

action to lower the lake level by four feet to limit the chances of problems

with the dam, which needs significant repair according to the state's

Safe Dams program. Homes downstream of the lake have experienced flooding

difficulty, most recently during last spring's heavy rainstorm that

caused flooding in other areas of Fayetteville.

After the Pye Lake study is

complete, the city must decide whether it wants to foot the bill to repair

the dam so the lake can be used for flood control measures, said City

Engineer Don Easterbrook.

A second phase of the study

was approved by the Fayetteville City Council at its regular meeting last

week. The work involves a survey of the ground underneath the lake to

determine how much water it could potentially hold depending on the level

the lake is kept at, Easterbrook explained.

The city is also considering

making stormwater improvements downstream in connection with potential

repairs to the lake's dam, Easterbrook said.

That information will be fed

into a computer model to determine what the city needs to do with the

lake, Easterbrook said.

"We don't want to

drain the lake," Easterbrook said. "... But if it works out

we have to drain the lake to make this work, that's what we'll

have to do."

The city plans to have its

repair recommendations ready by the end of April for presentations to

the Safe Dams group, which is requiring the dam to be restored to a Category

I status.

"We'll let them know

exactly what we plan to do," Easterbrook said.

Repairing the dam could take

upwards of $100,000.

"We are not planning to

purchase the property at this point," Easterbrook added.

To temporarily lower the level

of the lake, the city used two temporary siphons as a short-term fix.

Those have now been removed in favor of a single 10-inch temporary siphon

installed into the dam wall, Easterbrook said.

"It's doing what

we wanted it to do," Easterbrook said of the lake.

Since the siphons have lowered

the lake's level, its emergency spillway has not been activated,

Easterbrook noted.

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