Historic Macon

MWA customers receive clean, safe drinking
water twenty-four hours a day, seven days a
week, produced at the Frank C. Amerson, Jr.,
Water Treatment Plant. The Amerson Plant
opened July 10, 2000, replacing the Authority’s
Riverside Drive Water Treatment Plant, which
was decommissioned followed the devastation
of the 1994 flood. The new facility has a
finished drinking water production capacity of
60 million gallons per day (MGD), with the
ability to expand to 90 MGD in the future.
The MWA obtains its raw water for drinking
water production either from Javors Lucas Lake,
which is adjacent to the Amerson Plant, or
directly from an intake on the Ocmulgee River.
Lucas Lake is a 625-acre reservoir that can hold
up to 6.5 billion gallons of water at full pool,
which equates to approximately four months
of reserve.
Once finished drinking water is produced
at the Amerson Plant, it is stored in one of
four 5 million gallon clear wells onsite. Another
15 million gallons is available thanks to
seven elevated and ten ground storage tanks.
MWA water is distributed to customers via
approximately sixteen hundred miles of water
mains and service lines. Virtually the entire
water distribution system can be monitored
and managed through an advanced SCADA
system the Authority operates from the
Amerson Plant.
Though not the most glamorous of public
utility services, sewer conveyance and
wastewater treatment are nonetheless critically
important to quality growth in a community.
Wastewater collected throughout the MWA
system gravity flows or is pumped through more
than nine hundred miles of sanitary sewer lines,
into either the Lower Poplar or Rocky Creek
Water Reclamation Facilities for treatment.
The Lower Poplar plant is an advanced
secondary wastewater treatment facility with a
capacity of 20 million gallons per day (MGD).
The Rocky Creek facility likewise is designed to
handle a monthly average flow of 24 MGD.
Macon Soils—a nonprofit subsidiary established
by the MWA in 1998—oversees the biosolids
operations of the Authority, which includes
the sale of treated material to farmers for use
as fertilizer.
The measure of MWA success comes in
several forms, from industry accolades to
advances in customer service. All MWA facilities
have received either Gold or Platinum Awards
from the Georgia Association of Water
Professionals (GAWP) for one hundred percent
permit compliance, and the Amerson Plant has
been selected twice as the Best Operated Plant of
the Year in Georgia. In 2006, the MWA also won
the “Collection System of the Year” Award for its
sewer services. Yet within these award-winning
facilities are MWA employees who have been
recognized as some of the top operators, best
technicians, or most outstanding public servants
within the industry.
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Above: The Macon Water Authority
is led by a seven-member board of
directors who oversee policy
decisions for 211 dedicated
employees, as well as 54,000 water
customers and 41,000 sewer
customers in Macon and Bibb County,
in addition to portions of Jones and
Monroe Counties.
COURTESY OF MARK STROZIER.
Below: The Macon Water Authority
can store up to thirty-five million
gallons of finished drinking water
among its four clearwells, seven
elevated tanks, and ten ground
storage tanks.
COURTESY OF MARK STROZIER.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 79