Two employees of the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management — a unit long plagued with reports of theft and corruption — were arrested Monday and accused of stealing thousands of dollars worth of materials.
Watershed Commissioner Jo Ann Macrina said the men, Charles Edwards and William Spalding, are accused of hawking city-owned scrap metal and spare parts to recycling centers over the past several years. Edwards is accused of selling 176 items worth $61,645 between 2008 and 2015. Spalding is accused of selling 29 stolen items worth $3,430 between 2008 and 2014.
The men were arrested at Watershed’s pipe-yard maintenance and storage facility on Peyton Road. According to the Atlanta Police Department, each has been charged with felony theft by taking. APD nor Watershed provided additional information about the employees.
Macrina said the arrests resulted from a “continued, coordinated commitment toward the eradication of theft” at the department and that she expects more to come.
“I do want ratepayers to feel confident that not only is Watershed on this, but APD is very instrumental in investigating as well as following through,” she said.
The department has come under intense scrutiny in recent years after city leaders discovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in missing or stolen equipment. The items include 28 industrial water meters weighing 700 pounds and worth $5,210 apiece, copper, pipes and more, according to police reports. City officials also have yet to find a missing backhoe worth about $80,000.
Macrina pledged to investigate every lead on the thefts. “In my opinion, there will be additional arrests.”
The men, who Macrina said will now be terminated from Watershed, are not believed to be connected to the missing meters or backhoe. City officials did not say how long the men have been employed at the department or whether they worked in a management role.
The arrests are the latest chapter in Watershed’s troubled history.
City auditor Leslie Ward released a scathing report of the department’s inventory management practices last fall, an audit that found Watershed couldn’t account for more than 10,000 missing water meters. Ward’s office also found lax security at several Watershed facilities, including keys left in locks.
Macrina has said the bulk of the missing meters went unaccounted for between 2006 and 2009, long before Mayor Kasim Reed took office.
The department has worked to turn around its image by tightening up its security measures, now requiring manager sign-off on equipment check-out; limiting who can order, receive and distribute equipment; and monitoring security camera feeds from a central location. Watershed also will implement a bar-code system to track its equipment, worth a total of about $20 million.
Last year, amid a blitz of damning news stories about problems at Watershed, the city’s legal department launched an investigation. As a result, more than a dozen employees were terminated. None, however, has been charged with wrongdoing.
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