Businesses in downtown Milledgeville say they’re tired of worrying about whether they’ll have water, with one business owner saying it’s affecting their bottom line.
MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — Some Milledgeville businesses are frustrated by water outages in Milledgeville.
“The same problems we’re facing now were happening 15 to 20 years ago,” Buffington’s owner Mike Huffstetler said. “Unfortunately, our water systems are 150 years old, in some places 200 years old, and regardless of your political affiliation, they’re deteriorating and in need of replacement.”
As a restaurant, Buffington’s needs water, and Huffstetler said it uses it for a variety of purposes, including making soft drinks and brewing beer. If it runs out, it’ll create problems, Huffstetler said.
“We’re going back to alternatives. We have to go buy ice, we have to buy water for consumption,” he said. “Luckily, we have heating and sanitizer in our dishwashers, so we can use whatever water we have. As long as we have water, we can wash with it.”
But every day when she goes to work, Huffstetler worries about whether the taps will turn on.
“It’s hard to operate a business in unknown circumstances, and right now we have an unknown supply of water, a huge resource that we need,” Huffstetler said. “This is not fair to us as business owners and to our citizens.”
Hufstetler said shutting off the taps ultimately costs money and time, and that the city should prioritize solving the water problems.
City Councilman Walter Reynolds said the city of Milledgeville is trying to help.
“We’ve been trying to address some of the immediate areas where issues occur most frequently with planned repairs,” Reynolds said.
Planned repairs include upgrading the water treatment plant’s computer system, and repairs were made two weeks ago to a pipe at North Wayne Street and Hancock Street, he said.
But it’s taking longer than expected, Reynolds said.
“Ultimately, we hope to have a much more stable supply of the quality of water that we have. We know there are issues with the distribution structure and we want to address that,” he said.
Those upgrades won’t be cheap, costing between $70 million and $80 million, Reynolds said, and will likely result in water rate hikes over three years, starting in January.
Huffstetler said business owners want more reliable water, and Reynolds said he hopes these projects will solve long-standing problems.