Infrastructure

Over the last three days, I have been vividly reminded that Asheville’s infrastructure is urgently in need of attention. Two days ago, a water main burst a few doors up the street from, flooding the street, and part of my backyard and my neighbor’s down the hill. City water workers responded quite promptly and my water was only off for a few hours.

 

 

 

 

The next morning, yesterday, I awoke to my house shaking and loud grinding sounds. This photo from my bedroom window shows the crew working on another leak that had sprung up over night. The crew told me that there were at least five breaks in the neighborhood.

My water was off again for most of the day.

 

I was driving through Oakley this morning on the way to a meeting, when I saw a City worker trying to bring yet another leak under control right on Fairview Rd.

It’s as if a bunch of Asheville’s water pipes all reached their expiration date simultaneously.

I hope that our city will have access to some of those federal bipartisan infrastructure bill funds to repair our aging systems. Because there’s only so much patching you can do.

We need to make sure that this most fundamental of city services—clean, safe water—gets delivered reliably to all our residents.