Morning, y’all! Anyone wanna go in together on buying a town? Much of the pretty rural Georgia hamlet of Gay is coming up for sale soon. The package deal includes 64 acres and lots of historic buildings and other cool stuff. It’s only $13.5 million! Whaddya say?
Let’s get to it.
WHO’S WATER BILL AND WHY ISN’T ANYONE PAYING HIM?
Atlanta’s latest water audit has found customers owe more than $236 million in unpaid water bills. Unsurprisingly, City Council members are demanding to know how the Department of Watershed Management allowed it to happen.
Big fish, small payments
Several prominent and wealthy customers make up a good share of the unpaid amount, according to the audit.
- One Chick-fil-A location owes nearly $500,000.
- Ponce City Market owed nearly $200,000, but PCM’s developer says their accounts are now current.
- Also on the hook for payments: Fulton County, Atlanta Public Schools, a massive data center company and the U.S. Postal Service.
Council members want the DWM to start cutting customers off to collect on what’s due.
“It would be a lot more collectible if you actually started cutting people’s water off,” said Dustin Hillis, who chairs Atlanta’s utilities committee. “Cause if I can’t have water, I’m calling to pay y’all right now.”
🔎 READ MORE: Why the water folks claim it isn’t that simple
Not signed up yet? What’re you waiting for? Get A.M. ATL in your inbox each weekday morning. And keep scrolling for more news.
ANOTHER POLLUTION SPILL FROM THE ATLANTA AIRPORT
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport spilled an estimated 33,000 gallons of sewage into a wooded area next to Sullivan Creek this week. It’s the latest in a series of troubling spills originating at the airport in recent years.
- The spill happened at a sewer lift station near the end of a runway. The cause of the spill is under investigation, and downstream water quality is being monitored.
- Sullivan Creek is a tributary of the Flint River, which provides drinking water to more than 400,000 people downstream of the airport.
Environmentalists are fed up
- The Southern Environmental Law Center and the Flint Riverkeeper have threatened to sue city leaders over repeated instances of pollution.
- In January this year, a jet fuel spill at the Atlanta airport released an estimated 10,000 gallons into the stormwater system and the Flint River, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
- The SELC also said there were major fuel spills in April and over Memorial Day weekend.
🔎 READ MORE: More about the latest spill
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
💬 Georgia Democrats are decrying House Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to abruptly end the current U.S. House session until after November’s midterm elections. Leaders called the move “outrageous” and “desperate.” Johnson’s decision partially hinged on a surprise GOP-led effort to force a vote on impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
🎥 Atlanta media mogul Tyler Perry plans to relocate to Puerto Rico and spend less time in the city where he’s wielded so much influence. Perry’s namesake studio in southwest Atlanta won’t shutter or relocate, but the move still poses big questions for Atlanta’s media future.
🍁 In 2025, Georgia businesses exported $6.8 billion in goods to Canada. That makes the country, now pulled into a trade dispute with the Trump administration, one of the state’s most important customers. A former diplomat and U.S. ambassador breaks down what this means for local business.
WHERE ARE THE LADIES AT SHAKY KNEES?
Shaky Knees Music Festival, one of Atlanta’s many marquee music events, returns to Piedmont Park today through Sunday. (Please hydrate a lot, or more than your knees will be shaking.)
Top acts at the indie and rock fest this year include the Strokes, metro Atlanta band Cartel, Twenty One Pilots, Wu-Tang Clan and Gorillaz.
As cool as the lineup is, this is the ninth consecutive year the festival won’t have a female headliner.
- Only 33% of Shaky Knees performers are or feature at least one woman or nonbinary musician this year, according to data from a national nonprofit.
- That’s actually better than the national average: 23% for major U.S. festivals in 2025.
- The stats hit home for Shaky Knees’ female-led acts, like Athens indie rock quintet Hotel Fiction. Lead singers Jade Long and Jessica Thompson say Shaky Knees deeply influenced their work as artists. Now, it’s time to influence back.
- “If you love something, and we do love this festival, everyone has to work to try to put as much love in it to make it better,” said Thompson.
🎸 READ MORE: Notable female Shaky Knees acts and why including women can’t just be a game of numbers
NEWS BITES
Who will start the next game? Give our Falcons QB Wheel of Destiny a spin
Even Matt Ryan’s on there. You never know!
The new fashion trend of ‘joyful dressing’
I am currently doing the opposite (wearing an AJC-branded sport polo).
A tip about a swerving van led police to 66,000 US silver coins in fraud case
C’mon people. If you’re going to load up your vehicle with millions in ill-gotten currency, you have to properly secure your load.
We need a new word for “mouthfeel” because even typing it makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
ON THIS DATE
Sept. 18, 1976
Courts are beginning to remove stigma on cohabitation. American courts, responding to the sexual revolution, have begun to remove the stigma of judicial disapproval in some cases involving the increasing numbers of men and women living together while remaining unmarried.
This was only 50 years ago.
ONE MORE THING
Have y’all tried “peelable gummies”? I assume they’re part of the current mouthfeel (shudder) revolution in the snack food space. They sell mango versions at CVS that are as big as my fist and feel illegal to consume. The only way I can describe the texture is ... biological. And the flavor? Yeah, the flavor heard of a mango once and did its best.
Have a delicious weekend!
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact us at AMATL@ajc.com.
Until next time.