Lakeside living has its advantages: scenic views, cool breezes from the lake and instant access to one of the state’s top recreational gems.

But residents living off Flat Creek, which leads into Lake Lanier, are fed up with trash that comes downstream with every hard rain, and a torrential downpour Aug. 10 has fueled their frustrations.

“The cove across from my dock was completely full of trash,” said Paul Mercer of Ridgewood Drive in West Hall, recalling the scene from his backyard on the morning of Aug. 11.

Horace Gee Jr., Gainesville’s environmental services administrator, said troubles began late Aug. 10 when some 4 inches of rain fell in a 90-minute episode.

“It was like a 100-year flood event right in the downtown area, from the square and reaching out to the (Lee Gilmer Memorial) Airport,” he said. “It was more than our infrastructure — the new stormwater detention pond we put in Midtown — could handle. There was considerable flooding.”

Flat Creek is a 6-mile waterway, the heart of an “urban watershed” that cuts through Gainesville and unincorporated Hall County, eventually discharging into Lanier.

Trash that ended up there after the Aug. 10 storm “was the culmination of a lot of debris, a lot of stuff on the ground, stuff that was already in the creek from downtown,” Gee said. “It was such a heavy rain that it basically ... cleaned Flat Creek out from downtown Gainesville to Lake Lanier.”

And with the lingering drought and the lake being 8-plus feet below full pool, “you can’t get enough (water) circulation back in the cove to get the debris out,” he added.

A city environmental crew spent about six hours Monday trying to clean up Flat Creek. They picked up seven 50-gallon trash bags of debris, Gee said.

The area where Flat Creek flows into the lake is not in the city proper.

But “because we’ve got a treatment plant that discharges on Flat Creek, it would be a good sign to the community that we went down there to clean up, even though it wasn’t anything we had done or anything one person had done,” Gee said.

In its annual Adopt-A-Stream cleanup, set for Sept. 15, the city had planned to focus on the Flat Creek cove.

“We normally have about 100 volunteers and if we can get that many down there (for the cleanup), we can really make an impact,” Gee said. “Just two or three staff members can’t do a whole lot.”

Gee said he also plans on setting up a meeting involving city and county officials, so “in the future, if we start getting these calls, we combine our efforts. It’s not a city issue and it’s not really a county issue. It’s more of a county and state issue.”

Gainesville “is the purveyor of water and sewer for the entire county, but the watershed (issue) is communitywide,” he said.

Ken Rearden, Hall County’s public works director, said his department “will certainly help keep this county clean.”

“If we can get some cooperative efforts between us, we can certainly take care of that,” he said. “We’ll get ourselves engaged in this and see what we all can do.”

Ramped-up efforts are encouraging, but longtime Ridgewood resident Cecilia Lankford has her doubts.

“This is just not a situation, in my opinion, that’s going to get any better,” she said. “We’re concerned about the water purity. If people in Atlanta who get their drinking water (from Lake Lanier) saw those pictures (of the creek), they would absolutely have a fit.”

The water gets clear when the debris is gone, “but we have fished out toilet seats, dirty diapers, feminine products, oil cans, water heaters, televisions, tires — just disgusting stuff,” Lankford said.

“This is a unique situation and it’s going to take a unique solution,” she said.

Jason Ulseth, technical programs director for Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, an Atlanta-based advocacy group, said, “When you’re dealing with urban area and urban streams, it’s not an uncommon situation where you have trash and debris that accumulates on roadsides, ditches, parking lots and storm drains.”

Flat Creek, from its headwaters in Gainesville to Lake Lanier, is on the state Environmental Protection Division’s Impaired Water List.

The EPD doesn’t plan to respond to the latest emergency as “the situation appears to have stabilized,” said Kevin Chambers, the agency’s spokesman, in a Thursday email.

The issue also has drawn the concern of Gainesville-based Lake Lanier Association.

“I would love to see a community effort and collaboration surrounding Flat Creek,” said Joanna Cloud, the group’s executive director. “This area has been an ongoing challenge for our association, as well as other groups, in terms of managing debris levels and water quality.

“Since Flat Creek crosses through Hall County, the city of Gainesville, and flows out to Lake Lanier, it has an impact on all of us (who are) drinking water from and recreating in Lake Lanier. I am anxious to begin a dialogue of how the different agencies, residents and advocacy groups can work together to solve this problem.”

The association is holding its 24th annual Shore Sweep on Sept. 29. Typically, that event involves volunteers combing stretches of the lake’s 692-mile shoreline picking up trash.

“Flat Creek, for several years, has been a special location for us at Shore Sweep,” Cloud said. “This year, we are already in communication with other agencies about cleanups that are being scheduled for Flat Creek.”

“My plan is to be sure (that) between all the agencies, we get the current debris removed. Additionally, I am working on starting a dialogue among several different agencies and groups to discuss what we can do to prevent this amount of trash from flowing into Lake Lanier in the future.”