ATLANTA — Atlanta watershed employees are still trying to figure out why one of the city’s reservoirs is leaking, reported WGCL.
Two Hemphill reservoirs account for a half billion gallons of water storage but after workers noticed what they call an unusual flow of water in a storm drain, reservoir number one has been temporarily taken out of service while they try to find the problem.
In fact, upgrading the city’s aging water system has been a top priority since Shirley Franklin was mayor and it continues today as the watershed department recently began to update its master plan.
“We want to make sure that we can supply the needs of our customers in this region for years to come and so we’ll be updating those master plans looking at what it will take to supply the region that we serve with the population increases that are projected,” says Kishia Powell, commissioner of the Atlanta Watershed Department.
None of that will come cheap. The city will spend more than a billion dollars on its water infrastructure capital program over the next five years and says, overall, it will need $8 billion to finish the job. That’s why Commissioner Powell spends a lot of time in Washington D.C.
“Twice we met with the Trump administration folks to talk about the infrastructure bill and making sure that water infrastructure investment is prominent in an infrastructure package that’s so important to make sure that they knew that we needed additional funding from the federal government for water infrastructure investment,” continued Powell.
