Usher’s ex-wife calls to drain Lake Sidney Lanier in Georgia after his son’s death

ATLANTA –

The ex-wife of R&B singer Usher is calling for the largest lake in Georgia to be drained, where her son was fatally injured 11 years ago.

Fashion designer Tameka Foster has garnered more than 2,500 signatures for her online petition calling for officials to drain, clean and restore Lake Sidney Lanier to improve safety and remove hazardous waste and other obstacles.

Kile Glover, her 11-year-old son with Bounce TV founder Ryan Glover, died in July 2012 after a watercraft hit the boy while he was floating on the lake in an inner tube.

“Draining, cleaning and restoring Lake Lanier is not only necessary, but also an opportunity to honor the memory of those who have lost their lives and prevent further tragedies,” Foster wrote in her change.org petition, which she also promoted on her page. Instagram page.

Lake Lanier, located about an hour’s drive northeast of Atlanta, covers nearly 155 square miles and has water up to 49 feet deep. It is far from just a haven for millions of boaters, anglers and other annual visitors.

According to the conservation group Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, the lake provides drinking water for about 5 million people. And Buford Dam on the south side of the lake generates hydropower for the Atlanta metropolitan area.

The Army Corps of Engineers constructed Lake Lanier in the 1950s. The county office of the Corps in Mobile, Alabama, which still operates the lake, did not immediately return calls and emails Thursday asking for comment.

Heavy traffic on the lake has led to hundreds of boat collisions over the past three decades, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The agency reported more than 170 boat and drowning deaths between 1994 and 2018.

Foster and Usher married in 2007 and divorced two years later.