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Commissioner Jeff Rader
Manuel J. Maloof Center
1300 Commerce Drive
5th Floor
Decatur, GA 30030
(404) 371-2863
jrader@co.dekalb.ga.us
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| Public Works Director Update |
| Dec 27, 2006 |
Construction Projects.
The CEO, Commissioner Larry Johnson, Congressman-elect Hank Johnson, Georgia Power, and several other guests conducted a dedication ceremony for the Methane Gas to Electricity project at Seminole Landfill on Friday, December 8. The project has been on-line since mid-November, and is producing 3.2 megawatts per day of electricity, roughly the amount needed to meet 3,000 householdsâ demand for electricity. Georgia Power has been marketing this Green Energy resource, and has had several hundred customers sign up already. Congratulations to Leroy Scott, Billy Malone and the Sanitation staff and consultants who worked very diligently to bring this successfully on line with an aggressive design-build project timeline.
Three more of the Transportation Bond-funded sidewalks were completed in the last few weeks:
· Tilson Road, north side, from Second Avenue to Candler Road; and south side from Wallingford Drive to Second Avenue.
· Jody Lane, east side, from LaVista Road to Holly Drive
· Briarlake Road, south side, from Briarcliff Road to Lakeside High School.
The following Bond sidewalk project is in progress:
· Dresden Drive, south side, from Appling Place to Shallowford Road; is 95% complete and is to be done by December 31, 2006.
Thanks to John Gurbal, Fidelis Ogbu and the Transportation staff, and their on-call sidewalk contractors (Tople and Galaxy Construction), we have completed in 2006 all but a couple of the 24-miles of new sidewalks planned for construction this year. The planned 2007 sidewalk construction list (which will be the majority of the remaining Priority 1 and 2 sidewalks along arterial and collector streets, presented to the Citizensâ Bond Committee in 2005) will be posted to the web site in early January).
Several of the Congestion Mitigation projects (signal timing adjustments) in the Transportation Bond program have been completed: Covington Highway corridor, Stonecrest Mall area roadways, South Hairston Road corridor, and Clairmont Road near I-85. In January, a timing project will be implemented on Shallowford Road near I-85.
About 43% (or approximately 17 miles) of the 40-miles of Bond-funded resurfacing has been completed so far. The contracts call for the work to be completed by end of February 2007, weather permitting. The GDOT contractors are about 40% with the 2007 LARP resurfacing (a total of about 25 miles).
CW Matthews is also the general contractor for the interchange reconstruction project at Lawrenceville Highway and I-285, which is now about 8% complete. They have completed much of the clearing work, and have begun setting bridge pilings on the west side of I-285. This project includes complete interchange replacement, as well as re-alignment of Montreal Road at Lawrenceville Highway, and is also a two and a half year contract, to be completed by December 31, 2008.
Buford Highway sidewalks and safety improvements, from Shallowford Terrace in Chamblee to I-285 in Doraville, are 95 % complete. The sidewalks and the street lighting are installed; they have completed the 4 pedestrian medians/refuge islands and the pedestrian signals. They now have some punch list items, and some failed landscape items to restore. The contractor has been given a time extension by GDOT to March 1, 2007 for final completion.
The contractor for the intersection improvement project at Ponce de Leon Avenue and Hambrick, CMES, Inc., has started some clearing and grading, and is about 5% complete with the project so far. Most of the initial delays involve utility relocations, and coordination with the CSX Railroad in their right-of-way. Water line and gas line relocations have started. The project is scheduled for a contract completion date of May 31, 2007, but with several months of delay getting the railroad permits, it will more likely be around the end of October 2007.
The following major projects are scheduled to bid in the first half of 2007:
· LaVista Road sidewalks, from Northlake Parkway to Harobi Way, the County has completed right-of-way acquisition. If GDOT is ready to authorize the bid letting, then the County will advertise bids probably in March 2007 (this project will be a local let, even though the majority of construction funding is federal and state funding).
· North Druid Hills Road at Briarcliff Road, intersection improvements project in the Transportation Bond program, is also expected to be ready to bid in May 2007.
Phase 3, Unit 1 construction at Seminole Landfill is about 92% complete. Work is continuing on the geocomposite liner in cells one and two, and is complete for cell 3. They have placed about 70,000 tons of sand in the new cells. The leachate collection system, and the groundwater and methane monitoring systems are complete, and they are installing perimeter ditch aprons. The project schedule for completion has slipped slightly, from March to the end of April 2007. The current cell in phase 2B of the landfill has projected capacity through October of 2007, so the County is in good shape for opening the new cell in phase 3 before the current cell has to close.
Bids have been received for Sanitationâs replacement Animal Cremation project, at Camp Road, and should be ready to go to the Board in late January for award. The current facility is sub-standard, expensive to operate, and will have to be relocated as part of the Central Transfer Station replacement project, scheduled to start construction in 2007. The project should take about six months to complete, being ready in mid-2007, when work will begin on the Central Transfer Station site as well.
Environmental Quality
The Sanitation Divisionâs subscription curbside recycling program now has over 11,158 households participating, and has diverted more than 3784 tons of recyclable material from the Landfill in 2006.
Innovative Technology
The GIS Department staff have completed about one-third of the mapping and database preparation for an inventory of existing sidewalks along arterial and collector streets in the County. By the first quarter of 2007, they hope to complete most of this inventory, utilizing aerial photography. The Transportation Division staff will then complete field checks on the identified gaps in sidewalks (locations where sidewalks donât exist on at least one side of the street), so that we can prepare some long-term projections of the number of miles of construction it would take to complete sidewalks on most of the arterial and collector streets. The Countyâs current goal is to construct priority sidewalks along arterials and collectors near schools, parks or community centers. |
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