Two large water main breaks left parts of Atlanta without water for days last summer.
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Now, the City of Atlanta said it is working on a major project to improve its clean water system to prevent it from happening again.
Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Ashli Lincoln got the first look at the plans to replace the city’s aging system - with some pipes over 100 years old.
Water main breaks like the one on Peachtree Road in Buckhead on Jan. 30 have some residents and businesses questioning how reliable the city’s clean water system is.
“This is an ongoing thing now,” said one witness.
Channel 2 Action News was there as things came to a head in the summer of 2024 when multiple water lines broke in Northwest Atlanta and Midtown just days apart.
“Everyone’s water was out for days,” said a witness.
“Mayor Dickens has made it very clear that significant improvements need to occur, and it has been my job to make sure that happens,” said Al Wiggins Jr., the Atlanta Department of Watershed Commissioner.
He sat down with Lincoln to explain the improvements the city plans to make to a system that is nearly 3,000 miles long – long enough to span from Atlanta to San Francisco.
“Over the past seven months, we have done probably the equivalent of three years’ worth of work,” said Wiggins.
The city created the Atlanta Water Advisory Group after the summer breaks.
The task force includes the Army Corps of Engineers, former Mayor Shirley Franklin, and other infrastructure experts.
“This was a problem hundreds of years in the making, and so it’s going to take a couple of decades to fix,” said Peter Aman, Atlanta’s Chief Strategy Officer and a member of the task force.
Aman also said the work will cost billions of dollars.
“This new program will take decades and will involve ripping up streets, you know, of miles long length. And so, all of that has to be carefully planned,” said Aman.
“It’s been a struggle for as long as I’ve been here,” said City Council Member Howard Shook, who sits on the Utilities Committee and has decades of water infrastructure knowledge.
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Shook said the city has a history of water line mismanagement.
He said in the past, contracted companies did not regularly maintain water valves.
“If they haven’t been exercised on a regular basis, in other words open and closed, then they lock up,” said Shook.
He said that was one reason it took such a look time to turn off the Midtown watermain break.
He said crews also are relying on outdated maps.
“That’s a challenge now, because we don’t know where they are half the time,” said Shook.
“This is an all hands on deck effort,” said Wiggins.
He told Lincoln the city’s priority is making improvements.
Along with the advisory group, the city has created a command center that will “allow us to centralize operations,” said Wiggins.
It also enhanced its software to help locate the 70,000 valves within the system and installed multiple leak detection devices.
“We’re scheduled to save about 160 million gallons of water annually,” said Wiggins.
He said with these changes, along with the water advisory group, they’re moving towards progress.
“We are proud that we are working together. We have a plan. We’re using our time wisely. We’re working quickly. We’re working smarter, not harder,” said Wiggins.
The task force also will at the cost and how to do the work with minimal disruption to residents and businesses.
Atlanta has done a similar project of this size before when it was forced to replace its wastewater system.
Former Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Sally Sears reported on years of neglect causing problems with the city’s sewage system in the 1990′s.
“There was one terrible storm that came through and crushed with all the weight of it, collapsed huge trunk sewer lines, and two people died,” said Sears.
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