City of Cumming, Family To Fix Sediment from Lake Alice Dam Breach

The city of Cumming and a local family have agreed to remedy the sediment problem caused by the May breach of a Forsyth County dam.

The Lake Alice Dam—between Market Place to the west, Sanders Road to the east, Buford Dam Road to the south and Mary Alice Park Road to the north—gave way to the water the morning of May 19, and Lake Alice flooded into Lanier, according to the Lake Alice Dam Breach Facebook page.

More than three months later, the state of Georgia stepped in to require a resolution for a Lake Lanier cove now clouded with sediment as a result. 

Cumming's city council approved an agreement with the Mashburn family, who owned the 75-year-old dam, to share responsibility for it, assess the damage and come up with a plan to fix the sediment problem that resulted in the Lanier cove, reports the Forsyth Herald via northfulton.com. Cumming leaders also voted to give Forsyth County $100,000 toward repairing Sanders Road, which was washed out and has been closed since June.

The city released this statement on the matter:

The city of Cumming, Georgia, continues to work in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources as well as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to identify and remediate storm water and/or sedimentation issues arising from the failure of the dam which formerly impounded Lake Alice in Cumming, Georgia. In so doing, the city of Cumming has not and does not admit to any liability or responsibility for the failure of the Lake Alice Dam. Rather, the city of Cumming takes these steps and works in conjunction with these other governmental entities because the city believes it is in the best position to address the issues at hand in an efficient and effective manner. 

The City of Cumming is aware that there has been an effort to try and blame the City for the failure of the Lake Alice dam. It is truly unfortunate that such efforts to pass blame have been put forward when the focus should be on remediation, and the City declines to engage in similar activities. Instead the City of Cumming will remain focused on working with the Georgia EPD and the Corps of Engineers on the resolution of the impact from the failure of the dam. If the time comes that it is necessary to try and assign blame for the dam’s failure, the City is confident that the cause of the dam failure is not related to any City activities, but rather was the result of an unprecedented season of rainfall combined with one particularly heavy rain event over an extremely short period of time that directly impacted Lake Alice. 

• EPD Gives City of Cumming, Family 60 Days To Fix Dam Breach
• Forsyth Closes Part of Sanders Road