2010 Focus Areas

Clean Water and Wastewater Systems

Atlanta is spending $3.9 billion on its Clean Water Atlanta programs.  Clean Water Atlanta represents nothing less than a total overhaul of the City’s water and waste water systems.  The City’s drinking water and waste water systems are actually regional systems that serve 1.2 million customers daily over a 650 square mile area.  Sanitary sewer related improvements are to be completed by the Consent Decree deadline of July 1, 2014. Major initiatives of the program include:

1. The First Amended Consent Decree (FACD) addresses improvements in the City's sanitary sewer system and requires the elimination of sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs). As of April 2007, the City has contracted $411 million of the $1.83 billion SSO capital improvement program, and we expect to complete the program before the 2014 deadline. Under the FACD, the City is repairing, replacing or rehabilitating all 2,200 miles of sewer throughout the City and implementing long-term prevention and maintenance strategies under "Operation Clean Sewer."

2.  Drinking Water Projects: spending $200 million to replace water mains, $263 million to build new transmission mains, another $65 million on drinking water infrastructure, $35 million program to replace and retrofit the 150,000 meters in our drinking water system with Automated Meter Reading capability to ensure more accurate billing. Atlanta has contracted $305 million of the $922 million in drinking water system capital improvements.

Find out more at www.cleanwateratlanta.org

Innovative Waste Management

Atlanta has the infrastructure and opportunity to be one of the ‘Greener Cities’ in the U.S.   Georgia’s paper industry is responsible for $10 billion in annual shipments of paper products, employs 25,000 employees with an annual payroll of $1 billion, and consumed 2.7 million tons of recovered paper in 2003 or 7.7 percent of the total recovered paper used in the U.S. 

There are more than four main processors of recycled materials in Metro-Atlanta. In Georgia, 15 of the state’s paper mills use recycled fiber, 6 using partially recycled fibers and 9 use100% recycled fiber. SP Recycling Corp.’s Dublin, GA. mill is the largest 100% recycled content newsprint mill in the world. In plastics: approximately 1/3 of all the #1 PET plastic beverage bottles collected for recycling in North America come to Georgia to be turned into carpet backing. Mohawk Industries in Summerville Ga. purchases 100,000 tons of PET bottles annually for their carpet mill. North Georgia consumes approximately as much post-consumer PET plastic as all of China.

The City of Atlanta is becoming aggressive and innovative in waste management practices.  Recently hired to lead this charge is Commissioner Joseph Basista.  Commissioner Basista is looking to find creative ways to incentivize recycling and promote carbon sequestration along with other innovative strategies to manage waste and reusable resources. 

Find out more at www.atlantaga.gov/government/publicworks.aspx?section=PublicWorks

Download the presentation from Commissioner Joseph Basista

Cutting Edge Technologies for Green Buildings

Atlanta is leading the United State with over 50 acres of commercial LEED™ development or more than 70 certified LEED™ projects either completed or underway along with more than 4,500 EarthCraft Houses built.  Several premier developments in Atlanta include: Atlantic Station, Atlanta Community Food Bank, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University of Medicine.  Emory University has more LEED™ development by sq. foot than any other U.S. university campus.  The US Green Building Council, American Institute of Architects and Southface Energy Inst. are all strong agencies that have provided support in moving Atlanta to be a US leader in ‘green’ development.  Because of Atlanta’s leadership, Mayor Franklin was asked by the U.S. Conference of Mayors Energy to host the USCM Environment Summit on Buildings in October 2006. Atlanta is very interested in working with industries that have ‘green’ building materials and services to maintain its leadership position.

Find out more at www.usgbc.org ; www.southface.org