Thursday, October 10, 2024

DeKalb County CEO calls for water rate hike to address infrastructure issues

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DECATUR, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – DeKalb County’s top elected official asked county commissioners Tuesday to consider a proposal to increase the rate water users pay to fund improvements to the county’s aging water treatment plant.

“This is not a reaction to a crisis in a neighboring jurisdiction,” said DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond, who is nearing the end of his second and final term in office. “This is a continuation of a commitment that we made some seven-and-a-half years ago.”

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Thurmond said the funding source is needed to complete major upgrades and repairs to the Scott Candler Water Treatment Plant, which is DeKalb County’s only source of drinking water. An estimated $4.4 billion is needed over the next couple of decades to make the proposed upgrades to the facility, which was constructed in 1942 when DeKalb was a mostly rural county.

“Failure will not — cannot — be an option because we believe that in three to five years, we could suffer a catastrophic failure,” he said. “That’s our worst nightmare. It can’t happen.”

Thurmond said he’s been speaking with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens who’s in crisis mode right now — something Thurmond went through six years ago when a pipe burst shut down schools in DeKalb County.

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“One of the things I shared with him, ‘Mayor, if the pipes are 80 years old, you didn’t put them in the ground,’” Thurmond said. “And same here (in DeKalb County.) We have water mains that are 100, 70, 80 years old. I didn’t construct them, but when you’re elected to executive positions, you’re responsible for either correcting it or improving it.”

County administrators have not yet determined how much of a rate increase DeKalb County citizens would see. They plan to lay out an official proposal at a public meeting in two weeks.

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