FAYETTE COUNTY, Ga. — With heavy rain expected in our area Thursday, a local lake turned mud hole for a couple of years should be full of water again soon.
The dredging of Lake Peachtree is finally complete just in time for people who want to use their boats this summer.
Residents told Channel 2’s Berndt Petersen that last year they kept cursing the rain because it was holding up the project.
But now, rain is good. %
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“It's not a pretty sight to look at, at the moment," Peachtree City resident Wendy Minami said.
“It will be nice to have water instead of weeds and mud," said Rachel Jones, another area resident.
It all started when much of the lake was drained back in January 2014 so silt could be scraped from the shoreline.
A year later, Fayette County hired a contractor to do a $1.7 million dredging. But Mother Nature had other plans.
“The discontent with the citizens during this project every time it rained, you could literally hear the grumbling from my office," said Steve Brown with the Fayette County Commission.
Brown said 65 inches of rain fell over the lake last year, making it impossible to move the mountains of muck.
Completing the dig was delayed by several months.
“People love this lake. It's a great amenity. A focal point of the community. When it's out of commission, people are unhappy," Brown told Petersen.
But finally, the mountains of dirt are gone and so are the bulldozers, and almost everybody is happy.
"My two boys liked to watch the tractors and the stuff doing the work in the middle of what used to be a lake. So I don't know about anybody else, but they enjoyed the tractors,” Jones told Petersen.
Officials say it takes just 2 inches of rainfall to raise the lake level by 5 feet.