Welcome back to this week in ACPC, there

Oddly, Atlanta's water infrastructure is why I'm even in this state. 

My family moved to the area from Virginia in 1993, as my parents, uncle and grandfather worked for the company that rebuilt the Hemphill Water Treatment Plant ahead of the 1996 Olympic Games. 

Thirty-three years later, our water infrastructure—including drinking water, sewer water and stormwater—is both improved and falling apart. 

In the late 1990s, the EPA placed Atlanta under two consent decrees to clean up sewer and stormwater infrastructure and overflow issues. The work is largely done and the consent decrees are set to expire next July. But things aren't all rosy. 

You probably remember the catastrophic water main breaks of 2024, which prompted the city to contract the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a "risk, resiliency and water main assessment."

Watershed Commissioner Greg Eyerly presented the findings of that study to the City Utilities Committee on Aug. 11. 

Topline: At the $12 million annual investment the city was making at the time of the presentation, Eyerly said the number of water main breaks per hundred miles per year would increase nearly threefold by 2050. 

In 2025, the city saw 12.6 breaks per hundred miles, with around 4,000 miles of pipes—about 500 breaks, most minor. By 2050, it would increase to 34. 

Last year, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced a 20-year, $2 billion Atlanta Drinking Water Renewal and Replacement Program to replace hundreds of miles of drinking water pipes. The Atlanta City Council approved $6.25 million for the renewal and replacement program on Oct. 20, 2025. On Aug. 17, the council put another $25 million toward that plan over the course of the next four years, with an option to add up to two more years at the end of the term. 

Added to our current investment levels, that's $18.25 million a year. 

That's not enough, according to Eyerly's presentation. 

The commissioner offered two scenarios. In the first, the city would spend $45 million a year for five years, increasing to $56 million a year for the next 20 years. Under that scenario, breaks would increase from 12.6 per hundred miles per year to 19 over the 25-year period. 

The second scenario would commit far more infrastructure funding: 

"We would need to replace 29 miles/year over the next 25 years for the break rate to decrease," Eyerly told the utilities committee. "It's an investment of $136 million per year." 

That's $3.4 billion. 

Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative funding may reduce water infrastructure repair dollars

Council member Andrea Boone introduced a resolution to create a task force to study alternative uses for the city's municipal option sales tax (MOST). 

Residents most recently approved a four-year MOST in 2024, projected to bring in $1.1 billion in revenue. 

State law mandates that MOST revenue goes to water and sewer projects or repayment of bonds or loans for those projects. 

Boone's task force would determine what state and local legislation would be required to free up MOST revenue, whether current projects not paid out of MOST could be diverted to that funding source and whether the city "should seek authority to permit future MOST proceeds to support additional municipal priorities not presently authorized under state law, including, but not limited to: a. the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative." 

On one hand, we have a water system that is getting progressively worse. On the other hand, we have some elected officials considering using funding dedicated to or currently going to water infrastructure to fund the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative.  

Eyerly warned the utilities committee that MOST is essential for the financial security of the Watershed department. 

"We have an equity roll forward of about $125 million every year that rolls forward in the Department of Watershed Management," Eyerly said. "With our present condition of assets in our facilities, if we brought those assets up to the level that they should be maintained, we would have very little equity roll forward. And without municipal option sales tax, we would have a negative cash flow. Without MOST, our cash flow would be going in the other direction in utility." 

When the task force resolution came up for debate at Wednesday's Finance/Executive Committee Meeting, Council member Dustin Hillis noted that MOST accounts for 30% of Watershed's budget. 

"We have not only a stormwater issue that we will hopefully partially solve with a stormwater fee by the end of the year," Hillis said. "But that is still not going to take care of every stormwater project. Additionally, there are still wastewater projects to be completed ... At no point in the next decade or two or three do I see this city moving MOST out of the benefit of the Department of Watershed Management." 

The finance committee voted unanimously to hold the MOST task force resolution. 

Fish kill investigations ongoing, city and state disagree on cause of second kill

Around 44,500 fish died during the May 20-22 fish kill. The city had just experienced a 100-year downpour, with between 3 and 4 inches of rain dumped over the course of an hour. The massive rainfall caused sewage to overflow and dump into the Chattahoochee River. The Watershed department launched an independent and ongoing investigation into the incident. 

Eyerly warned the utilities committee on Tuesday that the city would likely need "additional investment into our combined storm overflow treatment facilities." 

The South River saw a second, smaller fish kill about a month after the Chattahoochee River kill. The Georgia Environmental Protection Division said a ferric chloride chemical spill at the city's South River Water Reclamation Facility is to blame. 

The watershed department released a statement and a social media video disagreeing with the EPD's findings. 

Utilities Committee Vice Chair Liliana Bakhtiari asked Eyerly why the city disagreed. Eyerly said, "We have not been able to physically link the spill incident that we had on the plant site...to the fish kill that occurred a mile down the stream from the ditch." He did say that the timing of the kill and the spill was "curious" and "deserved additional investigation." 

Stories from our friends:

Georgia passed a law targeting undocumented immigrants who commit crimes, after a high-profile 2024 murder. It may not be doing much for public safety by Gabriela Henriquez Stoikow for 285 South

Detainer requests are nothing new. But their use in Georgia was supercharged by House Bill 1105, a 2024 measure requiring law enforcement agencies to honor such requests, which previously had been voluntary. Now, with HB 1105, if they don’t comply, they risk losing state funding or state-administered federal funding. 

The law was passed by the Republican-led legislature following the arrest of an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela in connection with the February 2024 murder of Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jesse Petrea, argued the measure would bolster public safety. So did other supporters: “In Georgia we will do everything in our power to ensure criminals are not allowed to walk free and terrorize communities,” said Gov. Brian Kemp, who signed the measure. 

285 South filed an open records request with Gwinnett County, the second-most populous county in the state as well as the most diverse, to find out how many people have had ICE detainer requests since the law went into effect in May 2024, who they were, and under what circumstances they were first arrested. HB1105 took effect in May 2024, and federal immigration enforcement intensified nationally in 2025. The data we analyzed shows what changed after the law, but it’s not clear to what extent the escalation in enforcement is because of the broader federal crackdown.

Read more.