ATLANTA — The city of Atlanta is moving forward after a full-blown water crisis that unfolded over six days starting one week ago.
Channel 2′s Richard Elliot spoke exclusively Friday with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers about the difficult work ahead.
The big 30-inch pipe burst last week along West Peachtree Street at 11th Street in midtown, closing down the street, and several nearby businesses and sparking a boil water advisory for days across parts of midtown.
It was just one of several main breaks that happened throughout the week. It took days of constant work, but the water is back on, and the boil water advisories lifted.
But now comes the hard work of trying to figure out how this doesn’t happen again and how much that all may cost.
Alou Rice is an engineer with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.
“We’re here to assist the city of Atlanta in their water mission,” Rice said.
Only Channel 2 Action News was with Rice as he toured the Hemphill Water Treatment Plant with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.
Dickens enlisted the aid of the corps to begin the first detailed assessment of the city’s water infrastructure in decades.
And Rice told Elliot in an exclusive interview that a job like this won’t be easy.
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“We come in and do assessments of the system and find out what needs to be done as far as age of the pipes, what pumps need to be replaced and things of that nature,” Rice said.
The corps will develop a list of recommendations.
From there, a blue-ribbon committee led by former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin will turn those recommendations into action.
In February, Franklin told Elliot how critical water is to a city.
“Because people want clean drinking water. They wanted it then. They want it now, and they will always want it,” Franklin said.
Rice said this will have to be both a short-term and long-term plan.
“Then we’ll prioritize the projects that have to be done first and then have a capital improvement program. Might be a 10, 15-year program where every five years, you need to do this. Ten years and then 15 years to do that,” Rice said.
Franklin liked to call herself the “sewer mayor” because of her focus on infrastructure but that was nearly 20 years ago.
Any major overhaul of old pipes and pumps will come with a hefty price tag.
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