An estimated 31,250 of untreated sewage spilled into a tributary of Calls Creek on Saturday as a result of a blockage in a sewer line on Experiment Station Road near the Sheriff’s Office in Watkinsville.
Tim Durham, newly named Water Resources Department director for the county, said that the Georgia Environmental Protection Division has been notified of the spill.
Oconee County High School will have 12 classrooms ready for use when students return on Aug. 1, rather than the eight originally scheduled to be ready for the beginning of the school year, Jake Grant, director of facilities, told the Board of Education on Monday.
Grant also said that the replacement of the tracks at North Oconee High School and Oconee County High School and the installation of artificial turf at the stadium fields for the two schools is on schedule and will be completed for the first home football games of the year.
The Oconee County School System is opening the doors of the new Dove Creek Elementary School to the public following a ribbon cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. on July 24, the same day teachers report back for duty.
The first day for students at the new school at 7921 Hog Mountain Road in the far west of the county is Aug. 1.
A future sewage plant on acreage Oconee County is purchasing on the Middle Oconee River might include picnic areas and walking trails if a concept plan presented at a Board of Commissioners Town Hall meeting last (Tuesday) night is implemented.
Commission Chair John Daniell said the county is about to close on two parcels of land on the river off Rockinwood Drive for a sewage plant, but construction of such a facility is years away.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously on Tuesday night to turn down a rezone request for a 77-lot subdivision on Rocky Branch Road across from Old Waverly subdivision.
Commissioners gave no reason for the denial, but they took the action after the attorney presenting the case for the rezone would not agree to construct the homes on foundations with crawl spaces or basements.
The Walton County Water and Sewer Authority has informed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it is no longer considering a Morgan County site for a possible Apalachee River intake facility for the Hard Labor Creek Regional Reservoir.
The Authority asked the Corps to go ahead with consideration of its request for a permit extension for the intake facility and assume that the Authority would be successful in its efforts to purchase the original site for the intake on the river in Walton County.
Brad Raffensperger, running for Georgia secretary of state, had the same message for the Oconee County Republicans at their meeting last week as he had when he spoke to the group in January in the runup to the May Republican Party Primary.
Now competing in the primary runoff set for July 24, Raffensperger said he is motivated to seek the office to make sure only Americans vote in Georgia elections, to make sure the state is a great place to find a job, and to guarantee that the state is a great place to build a business.
