Watershed gets high marks on audit from water professionals

Single, one-day audit good, but sewer issues still abound.

The Georgia Association of Water Professionals recently evaluated the operations of DeKalb County’s watershed management department, the long-maligned unit that maintains water and sewer pipes.

“The unusual thing for DeKalb County,” GAWP representative Mike Thomas said Tuesday, “is that they scored 100% this time.”

It was a single, one-day audit and, to be clear, DeKalb still has sewer problems aplenty.

Mil l ions of g allons of waste spill into local waterways each year. The county won’t meet the 2020 deadline included in a federal consent decree ordering it to get its act together. And Tuesday morning’s audit announce- ment came less than 48 hours after an incident involving a log and a manhole sent around 32,000 gallons of waste into Nancy Creek.

But good news is good news — and residents should expect more of it, DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond said. “This is irrefutable evidence that the era of dysfunction and mismanagement in our watershed department is over,” Thurmond said.

In 2010, DeKalb officials entered into an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division, committing hundreds of millions of dollars to fixing the county’s aging sewer system and reducing sanitary spills. DeKalb officials have said they may need until 2025 — five years past the original deadline — to fully comply with the consent decree. But Thurmond has made the sewer system a top priority since taking office in 2017, and some progress has been made.

Thurmond said that the county had around 14 million gallons worth of sanitary sewer overflows in 2017. With two weeks left in the year, 2019’s number was around 5.1 million gallons, he said.

The audit conducted by the Georgia Association of Water Professionals evaluated the management of DeKalb watershed as well as plans and procedures it has in place for daily operations and maintenance.

“We are improving the effectiveness and efficiency of our sanitary sewer system,” Thurmond said.

CONTRIBUTED BY DEKALB COUNTY Tuesday’s announcement was shortly after an incident that sent 32,000 gallons of waste into Nancy Creek.