Two of the strongest determinants of whether you are standing in a first-world or Third World country are whether or not you have ready and easy access to potable water, and whether or not the nation has some type of sewage removal and possibly treatment system in place. For nearly a century now, across the United States, working water, sewerage, and more recently stormwater systems have been a hallmark of our civilization. But a LOT of that water/sewer pipe and infrastructure in many places is also approaching the century mark folks, and that means trouble folks, right here in River City and across this great land.
In January of 1994, Atlanta was to host its first Super Bowl, midweek that last week of January. Global media were descending on the city and downtown hotels and the GWCC Convention Center, and the players and VIPs would soon follow. Every hotel room for 50 miles in almost every direction was booked, most all of them at full rack rates.
The Hemphill Pump Station, the main water delivery conduit for the entire city, just over a mile northwest of downtown Atlanta, on the west side of Midtown, failed...and went offline. For a few days, water pressure across the city dropped like a rock, high-rise hotels, and the Georgia World Congress Center could not flush their commodes, and there was no water, hot or cold, available in residential or hotel high rises, without a large supply and water tank on their rooftop.
Miracle of miracles, late that Wednesday afternoon, full pressure and service were restored, but not until exposing the fragility and vulnerability of the city's two reservoirs and the pumping station which distributed that water. Following the 1996 Centennial Olympics Games, the next Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin would champion a $3-billion bond issuance, to bring the city's water and sewer systems up to speed, as well as meet the needs/demands of a truly world-class business center and destination city.
The work took years to complete and includes a new 2-billion gallon reservoir in the former Bellwood Quarry, northwest of the City, inside Atlanta's largest and newest greenspace, Westside Park, as well as multiple new sewerage treatment facilities, including one underground inside of Piedmont Park. Business and residential water rates nearly trebled and are still among the highest in the southeast, for water, sewer, and stormwater management. But Atlanta paid its own way.
In the case of natural disasters, like Hurricane Ian and the resulting storm surge, which recently devastated Fort Myers, Sanibel, and Captiva Islands along the west coast of Florida, and which is more recently threatening Florida’s east coast as well as the Carolinas, there is an appropriate federal disaster relief role in restoring water and other utilities as well as building back infrastructure, following a natural or even man-made disaster like the more recent and massive California wildfires.
Yes, the people of Jackson, Mississippi, and before that Flint, Michigan do deserve clean, safe, and potable water for drinking, bathing, and other uses. That said, rebuilding the water systems in those cities, and virtually re-plumbing all of Flint, should NOT be expenses born by the federal government, adding debt to every U.S. taxpayer household. There is a big difference between decades of inaction and neglect and a natural disaster.
If a local community doesn't care about its infrastructure, they have the right to make that choice, and not invest tax dollars or bonded debt, but they then should NOT have the ability to expect their state or the federal government to step in and bail them out. America’s smarter mayors and county commissioners are on top of this already, and do not want to be in the situation that the west Florida coast is at present with water, water everywhere…yet not a drop to drink.
Start investing now, create a side fund or temporary water rate increase to start building capital improvement funds, and begin replacement work on the most vulnerable parts of your system first…like aging pump systems. Trust me on this one…and with a recession in the near view, don’t expect Uncle Sam to run in with a plunger or play Master Plumber if you cannot at least match that infrastructure investment in the not-too-distant future. That spigot needs to be cut off.
