Atlanta residents pay some of the highest water and sewer rates in the nation.
One recent nationwide study backs that up.
“There is no question that the rates in Atlanta have been higher than in a lot of cities,” said Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman.
So imagine how irate Atlanta residents felt in June after a major malfunction deprived them of the most basic of things, H2O.
That brings us to the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management. That department is tasked with not only delivering that water but treating it so that it’s safe.
In a story that made national headlines, several water main breaks deprived much of Atlanta of water for several days. City officials declared a formal state of emergency. A boil water advisory was issued. The crisis was so bad it forced Emory University Hospital Midtown officials to transfer dialysis patients to other hospitals.
“Pipes that came out of two different areas on the West Side in the Midtown [area] were the damaged pipes,” Shipman said.
“One of them was from the 1800s, and the other was from the early to mid 1900s. It is an old system.”
The recent water problems didn’t just end in June. Watershed staff spent the July 4 holiday repairing two water main breaks. One occurred on Ponce De Leon Avenue. Another occurred at the intersection of Lakeside Drive and Kingsboro Road. The latter disrupted water service for two fire hydrants and five apartment complexes.
The crisis in June aside, smaller incidents of water main failures are far too common. Watershed’s own website warns that “the City of Atlanta may experience up to 30 water main breaks and other emergency repairs each month.”
When these breakdowns go so far as to cost business owners money, and when taxpayers have to step in to compensate them, are Atlanta residents getting the most value out of their hard-earned tax dollars?
THE STUDY ATLANTA DOESN’T WANT YOU TO SEE
Fourteen years ago, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reported that Atlanta residents paid more for water services than their counterparts in other large American cities.
“[They pay] 108% more than in New York; 98% more than in Nashville; 144% more than in San Antonio,” according to the AJC at the time.
“As high as city water and sewer rates are now, they will increase even more in coming years: The city has already scheduled hefty rate increases for each of the next two years.”
In 2019, Black & Veatch Management Consulting, LLC published a study that corroborated what the AJC warned about nearly a decade prior.
Black & Veatch surveyed the 50 largest American cities to determine who charged the highest water and wastewater rates.
When it comes to highest typical water and sewer bills for 7,500 gallons vs. the affordability target, Atlanta placed third highest, slightly less than $200 a month, behind Seattle and San Francisco.
Shipman said he’s unfamiliar with the study and could not comment.
According to documents obtained from Watershed, exactly 2,072 of Atlanta’s water mains have malfunctioned or needed repair since the year 2019.
“I consistently get emails from folks who are just asking about the rates. We are trying to make sure that they are getting their money’s worth,” Shipman said.
“Folks reached out and said this [water crisis in June] was a huge disruption to their lives and to their businesses. The mayor and City Council worked together to set up a fund for small businesses to try to compensate them for some of the losses that they incurred.”
A PROBLEM THAT DATES BACK MORE THAN 20 YEARS
In addition to treating and delivering safe drinking water to the city, Atlanta Watershed also treats and collects wastewater and manages stormwater.
Before and during the early 2000’s, stormwater flowed into the Atlanta sewer system and overwhelmed it. Raw sewage flowed out, untreated, and drifted into the Chattahoochee River.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through two consent decrees, ordered Atlanta to stop the combined overflows.
“There were some overall pipe upgrades,” Shipman said.
“But in many parts of the city there was actually a separate stormwater runoff line and series of lines that were constructed, [and they] basically separated stormwater runoff from sewage runoff. Therefore, you wouldn’t have the overruns of sewage.”
Exactly 20 years ago, the City of Atlanta implemented a one-cent Municipal Option Sales Tax (MOST) to comply with the federal mandates. Revenues from that tax would pay to upgrade and maintain Atlanta’s water and sewer infrastructure.
As stated on the city’s website, voters reauthorized the tax in 2008.
Metro Atlanta has 6.3 million people, but the City of Atlanta’s website, as well as the 2020 U.S. Census report that the city itself only has about 500,000 residents.
Out-of-town visitors and businesspeople do not pay the city’s general water and sewer bills, but they commute to the city for tourism and to do business. In doing so, they utilize the city’s water and sewer. The MOST tax was crafted with them in mind.
“Less than 10% of the Metro population lives in the actual city limits. It matters because every day the city swells to up a million and a half people,” Shipman said.
“That means that the city and its 500,000 residents have to support two to three times the population every day when it comes to services: public safety, fire, police, health and water and sewer.”
THE MOST REVENUES
According to records obtained from Atlanta Watershed, the MOST tax accumulated $20.3 million in 2004. In the year 2023, revenues were almost $203.5 million.
Over that 20-year-timespan, MOST tax revenues, combined with general water and sewer revenues and state loans have delivered between $2.3 billion and $2.5 billion, said City of Atlanta spokesman Schereé Rawles, speaking on behalf of Watershed.
This, Rawles went on to say, is for “the estimated $4 billion federally mandated sewer infrastructure overhaul, thereby playing a pivotal role in stabilizing sewer rates.”
Rawles did not specify how much state and federal funding Atlanta has received.
Atlanta officials indicated that repairing and replacing “decrepit sewer lines,” and not water mains, was the priority.
Rawles was asked to provide records of MOST revenues from the past 20 years. She only provided records from the past 10.
During that time, the following amounts were allocated:
• $448.5 million for Water treatment facilities, accounting for 35.31% of the total allocation.
• $475.5 million for stormwater pipes, accounting for 37.44% of the total allocation.
• $246.2 million for water main pipes, accounting for 19.39% of the total allocation.
• $99.8 million for other miscellaneous [and unspecified] categories, accounting for 7.86% of the total allocation.
As Shipman tells it, Atlanta City Council members vote to approve how the revenues from the MOST tax get spent.
“But the initial recommendations on where to spend the money, what the priorities are, and what the project schedule is really originates on the mayor’s and the department’s side of the equation,” Shipman said.
Rawles said that Watershed Management officials allocate the money based upon “system investment needs.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ Office of Communication declined to comment for this story and directed all questions to Rawles.
Shipman said each district council member examines the budget, especially when it pertains to projects in their respective districts.
“A lot of scrutiny goes into the water budget every year,” Shipman said.
WHY HASN’T MORE MONEY GONE TO WATER MAIN IMPROVEMENT REPAIRS?
Keep in mind, exactly 2,072 water mains in Atlanta have malfunctioned since 2019.
But during that same time, how many sewer pipes and sewer systems in the city have malfunctioned?
According to Watershed Management data, that answer is around 812….which, of course, is less than half of 2,072.
But for what money has been spent on water, Shipman said Atlanta now manages it better than it did in 2004.
“We actually use a lot less water in Atlanta per capita than we did 20 years ago, and so we should never have these kinds of breakages [like what happened in June],” Shipman said, although he did not provide specifics.
Rawles, meanwhile, said that due to the varying ages of each system, “there is no direct correlation between water rates and system failure.”
What about the 2019 study that ranked Atlanta as the third highest for typical water and sewer bills?
Did Black & Veatch officials factor the MOST taxes into their study when they analyzed Atlanta?
Black & Veatch spokesman Jim Suhr declined to answer any and all questions.
“Black & Veatch’s annual water and wastewater report assesses rates among the 50 largest U.S. cities and is intended to provide benchmark data while examining other issues [that] municipalities generally face,” Suhr said in an email.
“As a matter of company policy, we do not provide additional commentary related to specific cities.”
An unnamed Black & Veatch employee said over the phone that the company is scheduled to post an updated study of the 50 cities’ rankings soon, possibly in August.
WHAT NOW?
Have Atlanta officials talked to the feds about modifying the consent decrees, given the recent water main malfunctions?
“That is something that the City Council members, specifically Council member Howard Shook, asked when the Watershed Department came [after the water crisis] and had a conversation with the Council,” Shipman said.
“The answer was that it is something under consideration.”
Short of that, Shipman said City Council members discussed preventive maintenance and how to find the water mains’ potential weak points.
“Do we have a preventive maintenance plan? Do we have a consistent monitoring system that scrutinizes the entire system looking for weak points?” Shipman asked, rhetorically.
“And the answer from Watershed was we are doing that….but they were light on specifics. The council is pushing to make sure that there is, in fact, a preventive maintenance plan.”
So what do Watershed officials say, when asked about long-range plans, if any, to make certain another water crisis never happens?
“The Department of Water[shed] Management (DWM) will implement artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help identify leaks as part of a trial program in specific locations across the city,” Rawles said.
“To meet the Department’s infrastructure needs, the Mayor’s Office has established a Blue-Ribbon Commission and has asked the US Corps of Engineers for assistance.”
That Blue-Ribbon Commission includes the following members:
- Atlanta Chief Strategy Officer Peter Aman
- Former Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin
- Georgia Tech College of Engineering Dean Raheem Beyah
- Georgia Power Strategy and Support Vice President Cleve Fann
- Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Chief of Staff Ron Johnson
- Metro Atlanta Chamber President Katie Kirkpatrick
Will AI pay off for Atlanta’s frustrated taxpayers?
“This is really an area where we will continue to push on, to try to make sure there is a systematic way in which the system is being assessed,” Shipman said.
“This is instead of just waiting for situations or leaks to happen and then responding to those.”