The long pipeline to run Atlanta’s water system

I could go back to the 1930s to the first term of Mayor William B. Hartsfield. It had a fairly new water supply system, as well as an airport with biplanes.

Again, it wasn’t Dickens who created the problem. It’s just the mayor who got stuck with it when it went wrong, and now he’s left with the thankless chore of fixing it.

I say ungrateful because providing water is the most basic duty of local government. Water supply is a given, as is the air we breathe. The system is underground – invisible and inconceivable. That is, until brown water comes out of the tap.

Spending millions or even billions of dollars on something largely invisible isn’t sexy. Politicians prefer to carry out projects that people can experience, admire or even walk by. Like the Beltline or a new community center.

It’s like being an owner. You’d much rather spend a lot of money on a shiny new kitchen than on fundamental repairs. But without it, you have nothing.

Credit: John Spink

Credit: John Spink

“It’s not my fault, but it’s my problem,” Dickens said, promising to create a “group of experts” to study the issue and develop a plan. The panel will include the Army Corp of Engineers, business leaders and Franklin, who dubbed herself the “sewer mayor” for pushing through the billion-dollar-plus plan to rebuild the old Atlanta system.

She did so, albeit at gunpoint, as the federal government threatened the city with sanctions because untreated sewage routinely flowed into the Chattahoochee River. But, to her credit, she did it.

The blue ribbon signs are a good thing. That is, when their conclusions are implemented. But I have the impression that there are shelves at City Hall that are bending under the weight of ignored reports.

Crumbling infrastructure, especially decrepit sewer and water pipes, is by no means a problem just for Atlanta. The city’s immediate neighbor, DeKalb County, has faced many of the same problems in recent years.

I called DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond to tell him Atlanta was making his county look good for a change.

He told me his wife saw Dickens last week on the TV news and said, “That could have been you.” »

“I said, ‘Baby, this was Me.’ And it could still be me.

Credit: DeKalb County

Credit: DeKalb County

DeKalb, like Atlanta, underwent a more than $1 billion, federally mandated reconstruction of collapsed sewers. On Tuesday, Thurmond announced he would seek a water and sewer increase of an undisclosed amount.

This is in addition to sliding rate increases from 2022 to 2029 embedded in a bond issuance to fund capital improvements to the system. These increases, 6% for the first four years and 4.5% for the next four, could total a 50% increase by 2030. Not only do sewer and water lines need to be upgraded, but so does the DeKalb water treatment plant.

Thurmond would have preferred to concentrate on other projects. “I wanted to build a civic center, all bright and shiny,” he said. It could even have been named after him.

“Installing 5,000 linear feet (of water pipes) doesn’t make headlines; but if it breaks, it does,” he said. “You just have to accept it. You just have to do it. No one will feel sorry for you.

He noted that Scott Candler, the DeKalb leader who built the system in the 1940s, was later removed from office.

It’s not like Atlanta hasn’t tried to put things right. It’s just that there were a lot of corrections to be made.

Atlanta voters have paid a penny sales tax since 2004 to fund water and sewer projects and last month approved an extension. The city says the tax “avoided a 25% increase” in rates that are already among the highest in the country.

But that obviously wasn’t enough.

Credit: John Spink

Credit: John Spink

A 2017 audit found the city focused so much on rebuilding the sewer system — to the tune of nearly $2 billion since 2003 — that it spent only $350 million during that time for water infrastructure. (Audits have not been kind to the Atlanta watershed over the years. A 2014 audit found that missing or stolen items included 10,000 water meters, numerous copper pipes and a backhoe $80,000.)

And the city’s lopsided spending appears to continue. A look at the watershed’s 23 capital improvement projects for fiscal years 2023 and 2024 reveals only a handful that were related to water supply.

Dickens noted that the city would apply for grants from the federal government to help rebuild the system. They would be looking for a “billion, with a B,” he said. However, the city has received no such funding in recent years thanks to a friendly administration in the White House.

And if the other wins this year, the city’s demand will be even more problematic.

I asked Dickens’s office if he would request a water increase. It seems that there would be no way to renew the system, other than the arrival of the Federal Grant Fairy.

They said Dickens had assembled “an incredible team” and was not planning any rate increases.

Either way, it will be a slow, expensive and even generational process to sort all this out. Perhaps one day Dickens’s grandchild will reap the rewards.