MACON, Ga. — With the boil water advisory lifted in Bibb and Monroe counties, we're asking more questions about what happened, how people were notified and whether there are more pipes in danger of breaking and causing similar problems.
Chairman Gary Bechtel with Macon Water Authority says they are prioritizing older water main lines in the county. He says right now a lot of the issues are downtown and many water lines like the one on Zebulon Road are close to 40 years old.
"It was done when they did the expansion of the road on Zebulon so that was in the early nineties, so it's close to 35-40 years old," Bechtel said.
Bechtel says over time the lines deteriorate and they are trying to address older lines, but have other focuses too.
"We're making every effort to try to prioritize the areas where we need to address our aging infrastructure," Bechtel said. "We're trying to expand Rocky Creek, the wastewater plant, we're doing some work at Poplar Street. We're just trying to get our system such that it is reliable."
Water and sewer services are needed for everyone, but Bechtel says when the pipes are old, it can be an issue.
'We have a lot of aged infrastructure in Bibb County and we have a priority list of trying to address the issues," Bechtel said.
While the priority is to replace the lines before they get to the point of breaking, Bechtel says it takes a lot of money.
"Insurance, piping chemicals, everything," Bechtel said. "So we've got to do what's necessary to generate the revenue necessary to replace our aging infrastructure."
Bechtel says the MWA is also looking at creating a more reliable system to let customers know when something goes wrong.
"We try to put it on the website notifying everything. But we're also making an effort to try to dissect what took place this weekend and how we can do a better job of getting information out to the public," Bechtel said.
Bechtel says engineers and workers are on staff during the holiday weekend and were able to repair the water line on Zebulon quickly. He says they did a great job and thanked them for making sure they had services back up.