Not long ago, Atlanta’s antiquated sewer system was a source of disgust, flooding parks with raw sewage.
Occasionally, the sewers became the stuff of nightmares: a pipe collapsing in a Midtown parking lot in June 1993, causing a sinkhole that swallowed a car and killed two hotel workers.
Those problems serve as a cautionary tale for jurisdictions across metro Atlanta.
Systems that serve Cobb, Gwinnett, Cherokee and Fulton counties — and collectively touch more than 3.3 million residents — are spending millions on sewer upkeep. They see it as necessary to avoid millions in fines and required upgrades that total $2 billion in Atlanta.
Even though Atlanta has managed to cut the number and ferocity of sewage spills, taxpayers and ratepayers still foot the bill for fines and environmental degradation.
One January spill, for instance, could cost taxpayers dearly.
At first, the spill in the northwest Atlanta area of Ridgewood Heights was reported to be 94,000 gallons. But it was actually closer to 22 million gallons — 230 times worse, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.
Both Atlanta and DeKalb County are laboring under federal deadlines to cut the number of sewer spills fouling local waterways. Atlanta has spent more than $1.6 billion on fixes to comply with the crackdown, and it expects to shell out perhaps $470 million more — pushing the costs onto local residents and anyone who pays sales taxes in Atlanta.
Other jurisdictions are trying to avoid the mistakes of Atlanta’s past.
Gwinnett, Cobb, Fulton and Cherokee counties are investing in a variety of programs, from those that regularly flush lines to those that use cameras that find those small cracks that could eventually pose big problems.
“In 100 years, we don’t want to be in [Atlanta’s] position,” said Tyler Richards, deputy director of operations at Gwinnett County’s Department of Water Resources, who worked for Atlanta for 19 years.
“We’re trying to get away from the firefighter model and be a lot more preventative. You’ve got Atlanta and DeKalb right here showing us an example of what happens when you don’t.”
Tax extended
The heavy cost of rebuilding Atlanta’s sewers — and the urgency to raise the vast sums of money to do it — was evident in Mayor Kasim Reed’s recent radio ads urging Atlanta voters this month to approve a four-year extension of a 1 percent sales tax to fund sewer upgrades.
The pitch: make sure commuters share in the cost of rebuilding Atlanta’s sewers. And Atlanta voters extended the tax that could raise more than $100 million a year.
That much is needed to pay for decades of neglect that deferred maintenance and incurred millions of dollars in fines from state and federal regulators.
By the end of 1997, Atlanta had been fined almost $20 million for unauthorized sewage discharges into the Chattahoochee River and other waterways, according to one study. The state and federal penalties, racked up almost daily, reflect a lack of political will, said Harvey Newman, a Georgia State University professor who has studied the issue.
“It’s hard to get people to pay attention until the sewers stop working,” he said. “You turn on the faucet, and water comes out. You flush, and things go away. It’s easy to neglect systematic maintenance that’s needed for infrastructure. Because, let’s face it — sewers don’t vote.”
But they do fail.
In Atlanta, the city recorded 230 spills totaling nearly 337,000 gallons last year alone, according to documents obtained by the AJC.
Three of those spills were considered major, as they exceeded 10,000 gallons.
But the long-term trends are improving. The number of spills within Atlanta has dropped by 62 percent since 2004. The city has spent $43 million to inspect 1,600 miles of sewer pipe to detect cracks and other problems.
What counties are doing
In Gwinnett County, crews have mapped each manhole and noted the age and material of pipes along 2,800 miles of sewer lines.
Crews monitor the pipes with cameras and flush them periodically with water blasting at 3,500 pounds per square inch. An educational program reminds residents that spilling grease into drains leads to clogs and burst pipes down the line.
There were 22 documented sewer spills in Gwinnett last year, down from 56 in 2005, with no major spills recorded.
The number of spills, in fact, has fallen every year since 2005.
In Cobb County, pipes that cross creeks are inspected at least once a year — more frequently if the pipe lies in an area prone to flooding or erosion that could crack the pipes and trigger a sewage spill.
“We try to catch issues before failure,” said Steve McCullers, director of Cobb’s sewer department. “We repair it when it makes sense, and as a last resort, we go in and replace the system.”
Cherokee County’s Water and Sewerage Authority is undertaking similar work, equipping workmen with cameras to find defects in pipes. The county spends about $180,000 per year on camera crews and grease trap inspections.
“Pay me now, or pay me a whole lot later,” said Tom Heard, the authority’s general manager.
Fulton cut its sewer spills to 44 in 2011 from 51 the year before, according to Kun Suwanarpa, interim director of the Department of Water Resources.
Last year, nine spills were considered major, at more than 10,000 gallons, with the largest being a 106,000-gallon spill in the Roswell area.
The county has budgeted $8.2 million for preventive maintenance and $6 million per year for “corrective action,” such as routine flushing of the lines, running cameras through the pipes, replacing pipes and lining and sealing manholes.
Meanwhile, Cobb County is building a $305 million tunnel for sewage storage to lessen the strain on the county’s collection system and treatment plants.
“Our system is getting bigger and we need more capacity,” said McCullers, who said the project would save the county an average of $1 million per year compared to stop-gap fixes.
“It’s a little bit more expensive on the front end, but it’s going to save us a good deal of money in the long run.”
As it turns out, a well-constructed and high-functioning sewer system is critical to attracting large manufacturers — and both Cobb and Cherokee counties say they’re investing in maintenance for that reason.
“Some of these primary employers — folks like Lockheed — they need that sewer system to be functioning at a top level,” said Brooks Mathis, vice president of economic development for the Cobb Chamber of Commerce. “... If we had to tell them, ‘Sorry, our system can’t handle that, we could potentially not win that location.”
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