Current funding for Macon-Bibb pipe repairs will 'barely scratch the surface,' official says

On a recent day, Clay Murphey, a project manager for Macon-Bibb County, walked through an 8-foot-high stormwater culvert under a busy intersection. As he sloshed through 3 inches of water, he ran a hand along a jagged crack in the dusty red brick.

"This is the stuff we're concerned about -- these large cracks," Murphey said. "You got seepage that's coming from above. That shouldn't be happening. Every time you're seeping, you are washing away the mortar that's holding this brick in place."

Then Murphey pointed down to brick rubble lying in the water.

"What happens is ... this happens," he said. "Stuff starts to fail. You can see where someone's made some repairs because of failure that happened before."

The culvert under Hazel and Second streets shows evidence of Macon-Bibb County's failing stormwater drainage system. Murphey says most residents have no idea about the vast system of stormwater pipes.

"You're just dealing with an aged issue," he said. "Nobody sees it, nobody thinks about it until it fails."

And it is failing. There was the day about a year ago when a 14-by-6-foot sinkhole opened up on Macon's Vineville Avenue. Or the time Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was closed because of a sinkhole, a failure that happened just a few blocks from the culvert where Murphey stood.

These are hardly sexy projects that catch the public's eye, such as a community center or a splash pad. But the demand for upkeep on decades-old infrastructure can't be ignored.

So in 2011, when Macon-Bibb voters approved raising the sales tax by a penny on the dollar for big-ticket projects, government leaders steered $14 million of it to stormwater fixes. The tax ends in early 2018.

Murphey said the government will spend "every dime of that in a six-year period and barely scratch the surface." That's because a downtown improvement project showed more stormwater deterioration than first thought.

Last week, Macon-Bibb leaders began the process to renew the special purpose sales tax collection. Murphey says he'll recommend $30 million from that pot of money for more stormwater repairs.

And there's another consideration: New federal stormwater mandates are also coming down.

Municipalities across Georgia struggle to pay for stormwater infrastructure. It's part of the reason Georgia got a mark of D-minus for stormwater drainage systems on the American Society of Civil Engineers' most recent report card.

Nearly 60 Georgia municipalities have created a more steady stream of money for stormwater infrastructure. They turned their stormwater drainage system into a utility that charges residents and businesses for its use.

Brant Keller, director of public works and utilities in Griffin, helped create the state's first stormwater utility back in the late 1990s.

"Trying to get a SPLOST to fund capital projects is one thing, but you've got operations, maintenance and environmental aspects of the stormwater program also," Keller said.

Macon-Bibb isn't on the verge of Griffin's model. But it's open to suggestions.

Late last year, Macon-Bibb leaders called for a complete assessment of the ailing stormwater system, done by the Macon Water Authority. Tony Rojas, the authority's president, said the study will identify the needs of the stormwater management program and also look at the prospect of how those needs could be addressed.

One option Macon-Bibb could consider is to transfer stormwater oversight to the authority.

"Maybe it would make sense for us to be the entity in charge of water in Macon-Bibb," he said.

For now, Macon-Bibb leaders will focus on spending what they have left on stormwater fixes and look to another round of sales tax funding down the line.

This story was originally published February 15, 2016 at 4:47 PM with the headline "Current funding for Macon-Bibb pipe repairs will 'barely scratch the surface,' official says ."