Your guide to fall’s best festivals, Part 2
the News Oct. 11, 2014
Volume 6, Issue 28
Page 6
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rockdalenews.com
Serving Rockdale County and Conyers
2014 elections Rockdale County Board of Commissioners
Battle for Post 2
Clash over inert landfill may lead to litigation By Michelle Kim
mkim@rockdalenews.com
Heritage
athlete of the week Patriots’ QB Anthony Stanley is Heritage’s ATW.
Page 12 Sewer rate hike continues
Page 4 Friend to gardeners: Meet Rockdale’s new Extension Agent
Page 11 Like us at facebook.com/ rockdalenews Follow us @rockdalenews
JaNice Van Ness
Doreen Williams By Martin Rand III
mrand@rockdalenews.com
Early voting begins Monday, Oct. 13, and up for grabs in the only local race this year is the Post 2 Rockdale County Board of Commissioner seat. The two candidates running are Republican JaNice Van Ness, the incumbent candidate who’s seeking her third term as a commissioner, and Democrat Doreen Williams, who lost her bid for state representative of district 92 after falling short in the democratic primary runoff election in 2012 and is trying to win her first public office seat. See ELECTION, Page 9
The dispute over a decades-old inert landfill in the north Rockdale reservoir watershed may be heading to court as Rockdale County and the landfill’s private owners, Jonny and Lynn Brown, remain at loggerheads. During a Thursday meeting of the Rockdale County Water and Sewerage Authority, members discussed a draft letter to the Environmental Protection Division regarding the permit application of J.A. Brown Grading Inc., a grading and hauling company on Chandler Road in north Rockdale, to allow a 3.2acre inert landfill on 83 acres of private property. An inert landfill is composed of non-decomposing, earthlike material such as concrete, asphalt, dirt, rocks and tree branches that does not produce leachate that can seep into groundwater. There are about 25 inert landfills in Rockdale, according to the EPD, with 14 of them still active and 11 of them closed. Most are private and associated with subdivision construction in the Brentwood neighborhood but also include the Rockdale County Public Works, Town and County Truck on Iris Drive. There are six private inert landfills in Newton County, all still active. “We asked that this permit not be exchanged or renewed,” said Elaine Nash, who chairs the Watershed Subcommittee. The WSA’s mission was “to look after the current and future water quality” of the county, she said. The business’s co-owner
See LANDFILL, Page 14