Crews blast quarry to increase city's water supply

ATLANTA — A construction crew is getting ready for another blast at a local quarry to increase the city's water supply.

The next blast will be much bigger than the first one earlier Wednesday morning.

Channel 2’s Dave Huddleston was there when crews stuck a stick of dynamite about 4 feet into the ground and blasted a hole for a new pumping station.

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Right before the blast, Huddleston saw members of PC Construction checking out the blast site.

Huddleston also got video of heavy machinery loading flat metal covers over the hole before the blast to keep rocks and boulders from flying into the air.

After a couple of safety whistles, the first blast was underway.

One of the construction supervisors explained the process.

"This first blast was roughly about a 4-foot-deep blast," he said. "(We've) got a series of blasts that will be about 8 feet deep and we'll go into a series of 12-foot-deep blasts. Normal production will be 12-feet blasts and we will blast about 312 feet deep straight down in one shaft and about 250 to go in the other."

That second and bigger blast will be about 5 p.m. Wednesday.

There will be about 4 months of blasting.

The project is to build and connect a tunnel to the Chattahoochee River to increase Atlanta's water supply.

Cox Media Group