Shirley Franklin bills herself as Atlanta's sewer mayor.
She's staked her legacy on a nearly $4 billion plan to overhaul Atlanta's decrepit sewers and aging water pipes called Clean Water Atlanta. But many city residents are filing lawsuits over crumbling sewers, stopped-up storm drains and otherwise faulty pipes.
About three dozen suits from more than 80 residents throughout the city are pending. The suits could force Atlanta to pay tens of millions in damages. Beyond that, Atlanta faces more than 200 pending claims over water, sewer and storm water damages on everything from flooding to construction accidents.
Atlanta is already liable for more than $3 million from two flooding lawsuits the city lost. The city has paid off one of the judgments and continues to appeal the second.
And, while Atlanta plans to spend $3.9 billion overhauling its sewers, that program does not fix the aged and often overtaxed system of storm drains and catch basins that are supposed to control stormwater but instead flood homes, streets and businesses every time there's substantial rain.
Since 2005, Atlanta's paid out more than $9 million to settle 215 claims on water, sewer and storm sewer issues.
The mayor declined to comment, referring questions to the city attorney.
City Attorney Beth Chandler acknowledged that the potential liability is huge from fixing the storm sewers and pending legal claims. But she said the city plans to defend itself vigorously.
"We are a city that has a lot of activity that leads to litigation," Chandler said. "I'm not particularly alarmed about any of the cases or claims. They are a part of doing business."
Claims and judgments are paid by city taxpayers.
"There's no insurance here," Chandler said.
Eva Hofrichter knows the city won't settle easily.
And she couldn't be more frustrated with Atlanta after five years sparring with city officials about problems from storm sewer flooding at her former home on Windemere Drive in Morningside.
"There's no compassion [at City Hall]," Hofrichter said. "It's all against the people."
She bought the 1970s-era split-level brick home in 1985 and lived there comfortably until 2001, when a crumbling storm drain started dumping thousands of gallons of runoff onto her property and into her home. The water would sometimes run as deep as 3 feet on the lower level, she said.
The surging water washed up trash, attracted rats and grew mold.
"There were these humongous rats running through my kitchen," said Hofrichter. "It was horrendous. It took 20 years off my life."
She complained to Atlanta, but the city said it wasn't its pipe because the line ran on private property. Eventually, city crews replaced a portion of the drain. The flooding continued. Crews finally replaced the entire pipe.
By then, Hofrichter had to abandon the house. She put it on the market and finally sold it for $255,000, about half its preflooding value.
Property owners all over the city have similar complaints.
The poor condition of Atlanta's pipe network has created a cottage industry for two Atlanta lawyers who have more than 20 suits pending against the city.
Clint Sitton and Sam Starks haven't argued negligence on the city's part, for which Atlanta could claim sovereign immunity to keep from having to pay. Instead, the lawyers have argued that Atlanta's poorly maintained pipes create a nuisance that devalues property and disturbs property owners.
"There are pockets of the city that have had ongoing problems for decades," Sitton said. "I'm surprised there haven't been more suits."
So far, two cases have come to trial. Both plaintiffs prevailed.
The first case, involving 15 homeowners in the Washington High School area in southwest Atlanta, ended with a $1.9 million verdict. The amount climbed to $2.2 million as interest accumulated before Atlanta exhausted its appeals.
Hofrichter also took her case to court, winning an $835,000 judgment last year. It remains under appeal.
Starks said there's no way to guess what all the cases could cost taxpayers.
"The magnitude of the problem is hard to get your head around," Starks said. "But for the drought, you'd see a lot more people suffering."
Many folks who have sued complain that Atlanta's overworked storm drains can't handle heavy rains. Some of those pipes also carry sewage in some of the city's oldest areas, a problem being rectified through the $3.9 billion sewer system overhaul.
However, the program repairs only the sanitary sewer pipes and water system. It does almost nothing for a storm drainage system with pipes that are often decades old, deteriorating and undersized for the amount and intensity of development in Atlanta.
In the two cases Atlanta lost, city lawyers argued that the city either did not have to maintain the pipes because they were on private property, or that the city had no obligation to bring old infrastructure up to today's standards.
Rob Hunter, Atlanta's Watershed Department director, declined repeated requests for an interview but provided a statement that said in part: "The city of Atlanta has built or annexed stormwater drains and other structures that are designed primarily to enhance transportation safety by keeping streets free of flooding. It has an active stormwater management program and is in the process of mapping and inventorying its public stormwater infrastructure. However, the city has no duty to alleviate flooding on all property inside the city limits and has not undertaken the task of doing so."
It's common for local governments to struggle with localized flooding problems and have little money to fix them. The federal government previously provided substantial grants and loans, but most of that money is long gone.
Some Georgia governments have turned to stormwater utility fees to pay to repair damaged drain pipes and catch basins.
In 1999, Atlanta created a stormwater utility that would collect fees to fix the drain pipes, but that utility was overturned in court.
Watershed officials have been working for years to map and catalogue the city's drainage systems. They plan to propose a utility, and a rain tax to pay for it, later this year.
No details or fee schedules have been presented. But such utilities typically set fees by how much impervious surface a property owner has or how much storm water runoff a property produces.
The fees generated can be used to fix draining problems and clean stormwater before it ends up in creeks and lakes.
As for the liability issues, some Atlanta officials have talked about getting state lawmakers to pass a law that would give the city immunity from being sued by saying the city has no obligation to maintain or improve old pipes.
William Applegarth, an 88-year-old retired engineer, lives near the governor's mansion on West Andrews Drive in Buckhead. But even with that tony address, he can't avoid sewer and drainage problems.
Applegarth filed suit over issues with water pouring off West Andrews into the family room of his split-level 1960s vintage home. Sewage backs up from the street and bubbles up from the pipes and overflow from his tub and downstairs toilet.
"The sewer backup's my big problem," Applegarth said. "When rainwater gets into the system, it backs up. It gets so bad that water spews up through holes in the manhole covers."
Verdelle Moore, who lives across from John A. White Park in southwest Atlanta, has also filed suit against the city for flooding damage to her home on Kenmore Street. And that's after the city gave her a $43,000 grant to fix flooding damage at her house from an earlier incident.
In 2005, her home flooded for a second time, with water filling the crawl space and bubbling up through the air vents in the floor. That flood wiped out many of the improvements made under the grant.
Moore said her family had to go without heat for a winter because they couldn't afford the repairs.
"No matter how clean the house was, there was always this smell you could not get rid of," Moore said.The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
