EXCLUSIVE: Mayor Dickens lays out next steps as city prepares to replace water infrastructure

ATLANTA — Only Channel 2 Action News was with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens on Thursday as he toured the water treatment plant with the Army Corps of Engineers now that the city has lifted the boil water advisory.

Dickens is promising a complete assessment of Atlanta’s water infrastructure, and that assessment started Thursday.

Atlanta is just recovering from the water outages and boil water advisories.

Dickens told Channel 2′s Richard Elliot exclusively that he’s ready to tackle this pricey problem.

“I’m hopeful that Atlanta gives us a chance to fix this matter,” Dickens said.

Dickens faced criticism over his handling of a series of water main breaks that created water outages and boil water advisories across the city.

From his delay returning to the city after the outages started to what many felt was a lack of communication with the public, dickens said they’ve learned from their mistakes.

“And so, with that, I apologize, but going forward, we’ll tell you about every little thing that we’re doing because we don’t want to be in this situation where someone is saying that we could’ve done a better job of communicating,” Dicken told Elliot.

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Dickens is getting the Army Corps of Engineers to fully assess the city’s water infrastructure and come back with recommendations.

Environmental engineer Alou Rice is part of that team.

“First of all, we have to go in and evaluate and assess what’s going on. What’s existing, the condition of the system and then from that, develop alternatives to what needs to be done,” Rice said.

Dickens said his blue-ribbon commission will take those recommendations and turn them into policy.

But he warns, that overhauling Atlanta’s water system will take time, money and patience from the public.

“I’m going to learn what those steps are and I’m going to ask the public to be a part of these steps, to be patient, to be vigilant and also to hold us accountable,” Dickens said.

Dickens told Elliot that he plans to ask the federal government for billions to complete this project.

He said this could be the first of its kind in the U.S. and Atlanta could be an example for other cities that will soon be facing the same infrastructure issues.

RELATED NEWS:

Boil water advisory lifted across City of Atlanta Nearly a week after several water main breaks across the City of Atlanta, the boil water advisory has been lifted.

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