Atlanta Mayor Says Replacing City’s Pipes Costs Billions

Workers in Atlanta have completed repairs to a water main that broke and has since caused widespread damage and danger to the city’s residents and small businesses.

The city’s problems with its water main began Friday when the first two in a series of water main breaks appeared along with two pipes nearly a century old.

The problem has since been resolved, but only after five days of work, a state of emergency declared and damage throughout the city. Until Wednesday, Atlanta was still under a boil water advisory “out of an abundance of caution.”

But on Thursday, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens joined the Big Tigger Show and said the advisory was now lifted.

Dickens also discussed the breakdown and what the city is doing to recover, noting that addressing the age of some of the city’s infrastructure is crucial and that he is seeking funding to address the problem.

“We have pipes down there dating back to 1920,” the mayor said. “And now we’re trying to replace them because this type of infrastructure needs to be looked at over time to determine how do we establish a replacement schedule? Because we need 2024 pipes and 2025 pipes. Because when you have a pipe out there from the 1920s, you don’t know when it’s going to experience a breakage like this.

Dickens went on to explain that city officials are currently inspecting other pipes to prevent any further disasters before they occur.

“You know, we called the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and asked them to help us,” Dickens said. “And so they’re here on the ground, and they’re going to help us with a team of people, assess all of our underground infrastructure, pipes, valves, etc., and we’re going to find out which ones are old, which ones need to be renovated, updated and enlarged.

Most importantly, the mayor said the city needs to ensure that going forward, this infrastructure is reviewed every 30 to 50 years, not every 100 years.

Regarding financing the project, Dickens said he did not want to raise taxes on the citizens of Atlanta and so he was exhausting every possible resource, including contacting his friends at the White House.

“We’re calling our friends at the White House and the Biden-Harris administration and saying, ‘Hey, how can you help us with some relief?'” he said.

Currently, Dickens estimates that the total needed for the city to complete this project will be in the billions, but that it is in the best interest of the federal government to help one of its major cities in this domain.

For those who suffered damages from the incident, Dickens advises contacting your insurance, but for those who lost wages or things not covered by insurance, the city steps in.

“We have a fund that we just put together, and these companies can call us and apply for us, show us the receipts, and we can help them,” he said.

For the full interview and more, check out the Big Tigger Show on the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts.