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SECTION A: VOL 29* NO. 5
The Official Legal Organ ofDeKalb County, GA. Serving East Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, Chamblee, Clarkston, Decatur, Doraville, Dunwoody, Lithonia, Pine Lake, Tucker, Stonecrest and Stone Mountain.
THURSDAY, AUG. 1-7,2019
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An aerial view of Austin Elementary School that is 80 percent complete. Photo provided by the city of
Dunwoody.
DCSD gives school
construction update
BY TAYLOR ROBINS
Taylor@dekalbchamp.com
During Dunwoody’s July 22
city council meeting, DeKalb
County School District (DCSD)
representatives gave an update on
multiple projects that will impact
the Dunwoody community.
According to DCSD Interim
Chief Operations Officer Dan
Drake and DCSD Design and
Construction Director Richard
Boyd, the district currently has
seven construction plans in
Dunwoody.
Construction of the new Austin
Elementary School is now 80
percent complete, according to
the DCSD representatives. The
building will seat 900 students
and will replace the current Austin
Elementary School. With a project
budget of $23 million, the school is
set to open January 2020.
The new school, originally
scheduled for completion in June
2019 with an August 2019 opening,
is now scheduled to be complete
in November 2019, due to weather
related complications.
Dunwoody High School will
get a 41-classroom addition and an
expansion to core spaces such as the
cafeteria, kitchen and parking lot.
DCSD is in the preliminary
design stages of the Dunwoody
High School additions, with plans
to complete in November 2022;
however, the proposed budget is
$27 million-up from an original
budget of $ 18 million.
DCSD also has portable
classroom project plans for
Dunwoody high and elementary
Organization plans to sue
DeKalb over sewer system
BY HORACE HOLLOMAN
horace@dekalbchamp.com
In 2010, after years of
sanitary sewer overflow issues,
DeKalb County was told by
the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and the Georgia
Environmental Protection Division
(EPD) to clean up its act.
DeKalb signed a consent
decree almost a decade ago that
requires the county to clean, repair,
enlarge and maintain its sanitary
sewer pipes so sewer overflows are
reduced. The deadline to implement
changes under the guidelines of the
consent decree is mid-2020.
Officials with the South River
Watershed Alliance (SRWA) said
DeKalb will not implement the
changes by 2020 and plans to sue
the county.
On July 15, SRWA sent DeKalb
County a 60-day notice of intent
to sue over the county’s “failure to
meet critical deadlines in the EPA
and EPD Consent Decree.”
South river officials said in the
last decade DeKalb has had multiple
violations of the Clean Water Act
for discharging raw sewage into
community waterways.
“After a decade of stalling and
a much longer period of inaction,
SRWA does not anticipate any
change in the next 60 days and is
committed to taking necessary legal
action against DeKalb County,”
said Jacqueline Echols, SRWA
board president. “DeKalb County
must stop using the South River
and neighborhood streams as
sewage dumps. The fact that it rains
in Georgia is not an acceptable
excuse.”
Echols said when it rains,
stormwater overwhelms DeKalb’s
sewer system and causes pipes to
overflow. She also said the problem
worsens as the county adds more
developments to the “overwhelmed”
system. From 2014 to 2019 DeKalb
reported almost 900 sanitary sewage
spills that eventually flowed into
county creeks and rivers, according
to Echols.
SEE DCSD ON PAGE 6
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