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'We can modernize them': City of Warner Robins awarded $11M for water and sewer upgrades

The city was awarded the money through an American Rescue Plan grant

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — The International City will soon get started on upgrades of its water and sewer infrastructure. It’s all possible through $11 million in federal money that they say will push projects quicker than expected. 

There's no mistaking that Warner Robins is growing.

"We're seeing a lot faster growth and a lot higher percentage of growth than we planned for in our 20-year plan," Montie Walters, the city's utility head, said.

Walters says growth brings changes, including water and sewage. 

"Water plants, we can modernize them. Some of the capacity issues we have, in other issues we have in other pipelines on the map that I showed you, we're going to go ahead and move forward with that now that we have extra money," he continued. 

A few months ago, we told you about water leaks around the city, wasting millions of gallons of water.

"The main thing was just how long they let it leak for. We called them pretty regularly to let them know that it was going on it took them to fix it,” a Warner Robins resident told 13WMAZ. 

Matt Reis was one of hundreds having troubles due to the city's system.

"I did start to see like settling in my driveway, lot of cracks," he said.   

Since then, the city has gotten a grant allowing them to fix leaks and improve drinking and wastewater treatments. That means those projects should get done sooner.

“We had already borrowed 22 [million dollars] so now we've got 33 million [dollars] to more forward with projects we weren’t even planning on not even getting to until probably a couple years out," Walters said.

The City of Warner Robins provides water for the Bonaire, Byron, Peach County, Centerville, and south Houston County areas. Walters says a lot of the projects they are working on will soon be ready for bids.

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