Above the Waterline: What’s Wrong with Atlanta’s Pipes?

When Shirley Franklin became mayor of Atlanta in 2002, she inherited a major infrastructure crisis: an aging and dysfunctional sewer system in chronic violation of clean water laws. Federal consent decrees, signed in the late 1990s, required the city to stop polluting the Chattahoochee River within specific deadlines. Achieving a positive outcome will require enormous expenditure and determined, tireless leadership.

Neglect and mismanagement of the sewer system by municipal governments from the 1970s to the 1990s, along with the failure of federal and state agencies to enforce clean water laws, led to this dire situation. Escherichia coli Bacteria in the river and its tributaries threatened public health. After storms, toilet paper and condoms decorated trees along the rivers. Human waste rotted in stagnant pools, even in city parks. Sewer collapses occurred regularly. In 1993, two people died when a 70-year-old storm drain collapsed under a hotel parking lot.

Franklin said managing the city’s dilapidated sewer system has been the most difficult task she’s had to tackle in her eight years in office. This was definitely my biggest challenge as director of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. Our organization’s successful lawsuit against the city, filed in 1995 and supported by the U.S. EPA, kicked off this megaproject: repairing and upgrading the city’s combined sewer and stormwater pipes. Before 1920, wastewater treatment plants and nearly 3,200 km of sanitary sewer pipes.

Atlanta Clean Water Program

Shortly after taking office, Franklin asked Wayne Clough, then president of Georgia Tech, to convene a task force of independent water experts. Their mission: to evaluate the sewer plan developed by the previous city administration and propose alternatives to meet executive order deadlines and public expectations. The task force took an in-depth look at Atlanta’s wastewater treatment system and, importantly, also evaluated its drinking water and stormwater systems. All of the pipes and facilities built to provide drinking water and handle wastewater were in poor condition or inadequate for the city’s rapid growth, threatening Atlanta’s economy and public health.

Franklin responded by doing something remarkable. With the city’s long-term economic prosperity and environmental health in mind, she was determined to tackle two crumbling systems: the legally mandated sewer overhaul and the failing drinking water system. His Clean Water Atlanta program, created in 2004, committed the city to repairing all infrastructure. Refusing to take the politically expedient route (doing the minimum required), she and her team focused on root causes, including operations, maintenance and training.

RELATED NEWS: WABE/PBS will air an extended version of the documentary “Saving The Chattahoochee” on July 2 at 8 p.m. with newly added footage of Sally Bethea interviewing current Riverkeeper Jason Ulseth.

Water and sewer rates have been tripled. A new municipal sales tax (MOST) was passed by the state legislature to generate additional revenue. These funds continue to flow into the city today. More than $2 billion has been spent on sewers with impressive improvements in cleaner, safer waterways documented by Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. During Franklin’s tenure, she says $1 billion was also spent on the drinking water system.

Changing of the Guard

When Franklin left office in 2010, the Clean Water Atlanta program continued to be touted as the city’s answer to its infrastructure problems by subsequent administrations led by Kasim Reed, Keisha Lance Bottoms and Andre Dickens.

Consent decrees and deadlines have kept remediation work on schedule for the past two decades, as mayors and council members have changed. No similar compelling factor—a federal court mandate—has been put in place to ensure needed improvements to the drinking water system. Repairing and replacing these pipes and facilities has taken a back seat to remediation work.

Over the years, city audits and investigations have revealed serious problems within the Department of Watershed Management (DWM), which is responsible for managing Atlanta’s water and sewer systems. It failed to collect hundreds of millions of dollars owed by customers. Thousands of water meters have disappeared, along with other equipment. A department commissioner hired by Reed in 2011 is serving time in federal prison for taking bribes, and the most recent commissioner was just fired by Dickens in May.

More recently, DWM has been losing employees as capable, long-time employees have left the department for better jobs with more capable leadership. It’s worth noting that the department’s environmental compliance officer, a critical position, left more than a year ago and has not been replaced. According to informed observers, the problem is not the money intended for the projects. Instead, they point to extremely poor leadership, poor management, low morale and the loss of key personnel.

Few municipal services are more important than providing homes and businesses with clean, potable water and properly disposing of wastewater. Yet this obvious imperative does not seem to have motivated mayors or city council members to do what Franklin did: dig deep, find and resolve the root causes of problems, no matter how difficult and costly they may be. Until early June, when water main breaks left much of downtown Atlanta without drinking water for six days.

Opportunity

The recent water crisis should be the catalyst that renews Franklin’s vision of prioritizing all of the city’s water infrastructure. A physical and operational assessment of the city’s water, sewer and stormwater networks, conducted in a transparent manner, is required. The operational review should examine current capacity and leadership within the Watershed Management Department, as well as the role of the city’s contractors, to inform its redesign.

Since last fall, the city’s largest wastewater treatment plant, RM Clayton, has been experiencing regular malfunctions, polluting the Chattahoochee downstream from Atlanta, according to Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. A state report found “shocking” conditions at the facility; the federal judge overseeing consent decrees may have to review the situation.

Mayor Dickens has taken positive steps by convening a panel chaired by Shirley Franklin to examine the water system’s failings and by calling on a federal agency for technical support. Time will tell whether the mayor and City Council are determined to get out their shovels and dig deep into the water, sewer and stormwater crises, or buy a box of Band-Aids instead.

LEARN MORE: Find Rough Draft’s full coverage of the Atlanta water crisis at this link.