Residents voice their discontent over water issues at Atlanta City Council meeting
Updated at 7:34
Watershed Management Commissioner Al Wiggins Jr. spoke at a press conference Monday with Mayor Andre Dickens and other officials at the site of a water main repair on West Peachtree and 11th Street.
Crews completed work on another break at Joseph E. Boone Boulevard and J.P. Brawley Drive over the weekend.
Dickens has declared a state of Emergency in Atlanta and bottled water is being provided for those affected at six fire stations across the city.
WABE politics reporter Rahul Bali has been monitoring public comments at Monday’s City Council meeting, and joined WABE’s “All Things Considered” to share what people are saying.
“This is not a good look for the city of Atlanta. This is not a good look,” said community organizer Devin Barrington Ward. “This is reminiscent of Snowmageddon, right where people leaders were asleep at the wheel.”
Trinket Lewis runs MoreLyfe Juice Co. in Cascade Heights. She said her business has been devastated over the past three days.
“I’ve had to go out and store to store looking for ice because, obviously, we can’t make smoothies without ice. If I don’t have clean sanitized water, I’m now having to boil the water then that means I can’t clean throughout the business,” said Lewis. “So we were able to stay open about one-third of the day, but then, then the traffic is just wasn’t coming in as well because people are thinking we’re shut down.”
“We are repairing pipes from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and our infrastructure is crumbling, and we do know that, and we take no arguments against that,” said interim chief operating officer Lashandra Burkes. “And so we are currently literally just finished a call with some federal partners, federal agencies who we are going to bring in the best and brightest to help us look at what take an assessment of our system to figure out what things we need to do to have a better infrastructure in place.”
After this broadcast, the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management lifted the boil water advisory for the area affected by the water main break at Joseph E. Boone Boulevard and J.P. Brawley Drive.
An advisory remains in place for the Midtown area near West Peachtree and 11th Street and neighborhoods in East Atlanta. Residents in this area should continue to follow boil water precautions.
Christopher Alston and Rahul Bali contributed to this report.
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