Many citizens attended a town hall Friday for in-depth look on city water crisis

Dr. Charles Williams gave a presentation on Friday that gave an in-depth look at the history of the city that has operated a water system since it was first purchased by a private company in 1908. Williams also explained how the city’s water and wastewater treatment systems work. He said 8% of the city’s 1,500 square kilometer water lines are over 100 years old. During the ice storm in February, 48-degree water from the reservoir leaked into the system and froze the water strainers and valves in the OB Curtis sewage treatment plant. This resulted in the water not being able to enter the system, resulting in failure. The mayor states that our system was never built for extremely cold weather. “Cities with colder temperatures built weathered systems, and so they anticipated the cold weather in building these systems because they know that it is normal in these cities to go below 32 degrees and it happens all the time and so became ours System not built that way, “said Mayor Chokwe Lumumba. “Whether it should have been doesn’t matter so much, it’s who created the problem and who is now responsible for fixing it, and now we have to fix the problem.” Mayor states the city’s annual budget would not allow an update to the mayor has urged citizens and businesses to phone and write to the governor, lawmakers, senators, and officials in Washington to ensure their experiences and frustrations are heard .

Dr. Charles Williams gave a presentation on Friday that gave an in-depth look at the history of the city that has operated a water system since it was first purchased by a private company in 1908.

Dr. Williams also explained how the city’s water and wastewater treatment systems work. He said 8% of the city’s 1,500 square miles of waterlines are over 100 years old.

During the ice storm in February, 48-degree water from the reservoir leaked into the system and froze the water strainers and valves in the OB Curtis sewage treatment plant. This resulted in the water not being able to enter the system, resulting in failure.

The mayor states that our system was never built for extremely cold weather.

“These colder cities built weathered systems, and so they anticipated the cold weather when they built these systems because they know that it is normal in these cities to drop below 32 degrees, and that happens all the time, and so it is not our system was built, “said Mayor Chokwe Lumumba. “Whether it should have been doesn’t matter. It’s whoever caused the problem and who is now responsible for fixing it, and now we have to fix it.”

The mayor said the city’s annual budget would not allow for an upgrade to the water system, which could cost up to $ 1 billion to complete.

The mayor has urged citizens and businesses to phone and write to the governor, lawmakers, senators, and officials in Washington to ensure their experiences and frustrations are heard.

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