Forsyth approves $110,000 for permanent fix to water main break

FORSYTH, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Forsyth’s mayor and council approved money for a permanent fix to a major water main break that almost left the city without water.

One restaurant manager had to change to the way she did business for a few days.

“Nobody realizes how much you use water until you can’t,” Wanda Bittick, the manager at the Prime Palate, said.

She says she’s relieved the city is fixing a water main break for good.

“They didn’t tell us we had to cut it off, or use the paper plates. They just asked that we help conserve,” Bittick said.

The restaurant started using paper plates and plastic utensils so employees didn’t wash as many dishes.

“My dishwasher enjoyed not having to do all the dishes,” Bittick laughed.

City leaders asked people to monitor their water usage after one of the main lines to the city’s clean water broke.

“Some things are unforeseeable and that was certainly one of them,” Mayor Eric Wilson said.

He and council members approved nearly $110,000 in SPLOST money to repair the pipes.

“When something like this happens, we’re glad that we have it available and we’re able to use that money to make the repair,” Wilson said.

It’s a process that’ll take at least a month as work crews move nearly 700 feet of pipes.

Wilson is planning on working with the county on tying another line in with the southern part of the city so that they’ll have a backup plan.

“If we had a situation where something like this happened again, God forbid, we’d be a little bit better prepared by having the ability to turn the faucet, so to speak, and get that redundancy,” Wilson said.

A near emergency Wilson says would’ve left the city without water.

“We probably would not have made it if the citizens weren’t helping us out,” he said.

While she’s thankful for the changes, Bittick has a couple of cases of water in the back of the restaurant just to be on the safe side.

“I have a little bit back there just in case,” she said.

Mayor Wilson says the old pipes that broke were in place for at least 30 years. He expects the current fixes to hold for just as long.