FOBC gets most of its information on Lake Petit Dam from Georgia Open Records Requests (GORA). Property Owners get most of their information from Scott Auer and the Big Canoe Board of Directors, who get their information from our current Engineer, Goesyntec.
What I am about to announce is Very Bad News. Before I go into the details of what I have discovered, and what it means, I want to expose Scott Auer and/or the Board of Directors for shamelessly LYING TO AND MISLEADING Property Owners….. again.
The way information flows is that Scott Auer (GM) works with Geosyntec and gets information from them. Then Scott updates the Board. Then the Board updates the Property Owners. On June 20, 2022 Scott Auer updated the Board regarding Lake Petit Dam. The Board incorporated that into the “Minutes of Meeting“. Here is what was presented in the Minutes:
- “Geosyntec is working on various scenarios for testing the lower Lake Petit Dam outlet gate.”
Just 4 days earlier, on June 16, a “Phone Log” between David Griffin (head of Georgia Safe Dams) and Geosyntec’s Wes McDonald recorded the following:
“Testing” vs “Replacement” ….. 2 very different things, which I will go over in a moment, but first I want to ask the following questions? (1) Did Scott Auer mislead the Board about what the current plans are for fixing Lake Petit Dam? Or (2) did the Board intentionally mislead Property Owners by covering up the scope of where the Engineers were in the process? Again, we have the theme of serious Non-Transparency somewhere in the process.
In the previous sentence the word “SERIOUS” is used. Let me cut to the chase of what “Replacement” involves. It involves draining Lake Petit to the very bottom, and then digging out the entire center of the Dam, from the bottom of the Lake, straight through to a point about 10 feet below the ballfield at the base of the Dam. Then the Pipe gets ripped out, and new Pipe installed. Then the entire Dam gets rebuilt. If that sounds ungodly expensive and disruptive, well duh! It is.
But wait, they also said possibly just “rehabilitation” could solve the problem. What is that? That is similar to what was done at Lake Disharoon where a smaller pipe is fed into the main pipe to create a new drain system. Let me just say two things on that: (1) This solution is a “Pipe Dream”. Lake Petit Dam, the 2nd largest earthen Dam in Georgia, is NOT the same as that little pond called Lake Disharoon, and doing a pipe slip in this situation ain’t going to happen. (2) In the 1 in a million chance this was workable, it would still require the Lake to be drained dry to do the work.
So why the “Testing”? Again, because they need to Drain the Lake to do the work. And they can’t. As we have reported many many times, Big Canoe has failed to test the Lower Drain in the ENTIRE 50 Years of Existence. The entire legal requirement to have a lower level outlet is to be able to drain the lake in an emergency. But they have basically operated the Dam ILLEGALLY for that entire time, and now it is time to pay the piper. The Drain has not been tested in recent years for a reason…. because it is very dangerous and (a) could cause landslides around the edge of Lake Petit if the Drain Gate gets stuck open and the Lake drains too fast (similar to how a routine draining of Lake Disharoon ended in disaster), or even worse, (b) if there is structural damage inside the Pipes and it just blows the guts out of the entire Dam resulting in a catastrophic failure (and they refuse to release the interior Camera and Dive Inspections of those pipes).
So basically, Big Canoe’s BS Plan that they said they could do earlier for 5 – 7 Million Dollars by creating a new “Pump System” to drain the Lake has apparently been nixed by Ga Safe Dams (as predicted) – and we are back to draining the lake completely, digging up the entire center of the Dam all the way to the bottom, replacing the Lower level drain pipes, and then Rebuilding the Dam. If you ever wondered why Big Canoe needed a 20 Million Dollar Line of Credit, now you can start to get the idea. My prediction is that they are going to need a MUCH bigger loan ($$$) to handle the scope of what is coming.
So to conclude, you’ve been lied to, and all so that the Board and Scott Auer can continue along their merry path of remodeled Golf Courses and Improved Club Houses. And I hate to tell you I told you so, but…. well…… let’s just say that I have predicted this exact end game scenario – and if you want to go back and revisit several of my earlier articles you will see that.
One last point…. once the Lake is drained, and the Dam is dug out, and Pipe replaced…. there is still the matter of the Rebuild. I will again predict that at that point Ga Safe Dams will make them build it back MUCH larger, extending across the lower road, and well into the lower ballfield – because the issues of the Dam’s failure to meet minimum Seismic Requirements haven’t even been addressed yet.
My understanding is that the fight over the seismic aspect is still to come. Geosyntec is slowly leading Big Canoe along a meandering path of nonsensical “Hopium Based” solutions, siphoning money out of the community faster than they are siphoning water out of the Lake. I suggest that Property Owners quit playing Ostrich, as this is not going away, and will only get worse, as we speed towards an eventual collision with the brick wall of reality.
Enjoy the 2022 Big Canoe Annual Meeting! Perhaps some Q&A with the Board and Mr Auer are in Order?
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Peace,
– david / publisher
Focus on Big Canoe, GA
* a publication of The Mountains Voice
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