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Atlanta Mayor Outlines Plan to Fix City Infrastructure After Days of Water Main Breaks and Repairs – WSB-TV Channel 2

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ATLANTA — Atlanta’s mayor is promising the city of Atlanta will do a better job if it faces another water pipe crisis in the future.

Just two hours after crews completed repair work at West Peachtree and 11th Streetand restored water to downtown, Mayor Andre Dickens explained how the city would move forward.

That includes the Army Corps of Engineers, a special committee headed by Atlanta’s former “sewer mayor” and a request for more than $1 billion from the federal government.

“We’re happy to be on the other side,” Dickens said at a morning news conference Wednesday.

Channel 2’s Richard Elliot was there as Dickens praised the work crews who worked day and night to repair not only the downtown water break, but also those who worked to repair the break in Vine City that resulted in water cuts for tens of thousands of people.

But now he must face what awaits him.

Much of Atlanta’s water infrastructure – the pipes – date from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, and they are showing their age.

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“While I say we are frustrated, that includes, we also know that we are going to act proactively to start moving in the right direction, to replace as much of the broken or old infrastructure that we have as possible,” Dickens said .

Dickens directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin a comprehensive assessment of the city’s water infrastructure and make recommendations on how to repair them.

He is participating on an expert panel led by former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, the self-proclaimed “sewer mayor” of Atlanta for her attention to infrastructure nearly 20 years ago. They will transform the recommendations into policies.

Dickens said they will go directly to the federal government for the money to make all of this happen – which he knows won’t be cheap.

“I will ask the federal government for more money, a lot more money. I want us to be the example of solving all of this, and that will be in the billions. It won’t be a small number,” Dickens said.

For now, water is back in the city center. The boil water advisory could be lifted as early as Thursday morning.

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