The Proposed $3,000,000 Bond Issue for Atlanta

The Proposed $3,000,000 Bond Issue for Atlanta

According to W. E. Dunn, chairman of the water board of Atlanta, Ga., a bond issue of $3,000,000 will be necessary to provide an adequate water system for the city. He said that the city would have to prepare to meet the demands growing more and more urgent daily for an increase in the water facilities. He said he was in favor of the bond issue as the improved method of solving the financial difficulties which now prevent the board from installing additional facilities needed at the present time and in enlarging the plant to keep the city’s water supply ahead of its growth. W. Zode Smith, superintendent of the water works, coincides in the opinion of Mr. Dunn. An issue of not less than $3,000,000 will be required for the improvements needed, in the opinion of Mr. Dunn and Mr. Smith, basing their figures on the result of a survey of the system recently made by Norcross & Keis, engineers employed by the city. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a portion of the emergency tax levied by council last year, is available for the Installation of additional filters and clear water basins at the Hemphill station. Plans for these improvements have been prepared by Mr. Norcross and Mr. Keis, concurred in by the city engineers, and approved by the water board. Construction will begin in the near future. When this money is spent, no further improvements are possible unless Icouncil imposes another emergency tax or a bond issue is voted.

In calling attention to the serious situation confronting the city through failure to enlarge the water works plant, Mr. Smith stated that the water board is simply citing cold, clear facts that every day makes more distinct. Atlanta’s plant is twenty-eight years old, and for years has been operating above its rated capacity, and if at any time some vital break had occurred at one of the pumps, the city’s water supply would have failed. Since the plant was built, water consumption in Atlanta has increased 1,000 per cent. At first one 30-inch main carried the pumpage from the river to the Hemphill station. Later it was paralleled with a 36-inch main, and next year a third main must be laid, it is said, and the intake at the river station enlarged.