More than a month after spilling most of its contents downstream, the dam at Lake Alice in Cumming remains breached.
While owners of the 10-acre lake negotiate responsibility for repairs, residents of a nearby cove at Lake Lanier remain mired in the fallout.
At the same time, Sanders Road, lying between the dam and Lake Lanier, is closed until city and county engineers figure out how to repair it. Forsyth County has agreed to chip in half the cost — $16,000 — for a quick fix, although it remains unsure how much of the road running through the damaged area belongs to the county.
Residents of the cove at Lanier where much of the silt has flowed say they don’t know why it’s taking so long to get the sludge stopped. Residents say the murky water lapping at their backyards has made their segment of the lake virtually unusable since the May 19 dam break.
Michal Leahy, one of about 50 affected homeowners, won’t use his boat for fear of ruining the engine.
“We all understand it will be a long-term project to stop the flow of sediment and to restore the cove,” he said. “We just wish someone would talk to us about the planning being done to remediate the issue.”
Brant Meadows, another cove property owner, said what’s left of Lake Alice is a muddy soup that migrates to the lake by way of Little Ridge Creek. In the meantime, he’s heard nothing from the city of Cumming or the Mashburn family, joint owners of the lake.
“Sandy Springs had a dam breach and their government came out, talked to the citizens,” Meadows said. “We get no such thing up here.”
Early last month, the state Environmental Protection Division drew up a consent agreement with Cumming and the Mashburns to address the problem, but the deal fell through at the final stages.
Mashburn attorney Michael Carvalho said one snag concerns a recent federal court ruling on the Clean Water Act, holding that a consent order with the EPD must include a component for public comment. He said the family wants to give residents an opportunity to weigh in on how repairs and cleanup should be handled.
Already, the lake bed has been seeded and turbidity curtains have been installed to stop runoff into the creek.
“The Mashburn family is committed to making this thing right,” Carvalho said.
Another holdup is assigning responsibility for the dam break.
Carvalho said a chief factor for the breach was the city’s permitting commercial development upstream, creating greater volumes of runoff into the watershed. The city denies culpability, saying planners insisted the builders install a detention pond and underground stormwater holding areas throughout the development.
“All the things the city did to deter the runoff did their job,” said Cumming city administrator Gerald Blackburn.
At the same time, Blackburn said, attorneys are working to get an consent agreement signed as soon as possible.
“We will get the problem solved,” he said.
Bert Langley, district coordinator with EPD, said Tuesday his agency is willing to hold public hearings on the consent order if that will move the process along. All it takes, he said, is for either the Mashburns or the city to request one.
He said there is also some language the Mashburn family has proposed in the consent order that needs to be negotiated before he’s comfortable.
“All the parties agree on the technical aspects of getting the work done,” he said. “It’s getting the legalities of it settled.”
About the Author
