Latest news with #CobbCounty-MariettaWaterAuthority
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Yahoo
Heads up, drivers! Major road near Kennesaw Mountain to be closed for months
A major road connecting west Cobb to Interstate 75 will close this week. Commuters and visitors to Kennesaw Mountain will have to find a detour. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The Stilesboro Road project will happen in three phases. The first was supposed to start on Tuesday, but was pushed back to Thursday. Traffic backs up on Stilesboro Road each morning near Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. It will shut down from Gilbert Road to Old Mountain Road. 'It's going to be pretty bad,' one driver told Channel 2's Steve Gehlbach. 'With everybody working, school, all that, it's definitely going to cause issues,' another driver said. The detours will be on Barrett Parkway to Old Highway 41, Cobb Parkway or going around to the south on Burnt Hickory to get to Whitlock Ave through Marietta. 'To give the public some time to prepare for this closure, we have delayed that closure to Thursday, May 8th,' said Cole Blackwell. TRENDING STORIES: Blackwell is the general manager for Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority. He says crews are replacing an aging, 30-inch pipe with a new, 12-inch watermain as the utility tries to re-route lines around the national park. 'The pipeline along Stilesboro Road is over 60 years old. It's time to replace the pipe,' he said. Crews will also relocate other infrastructure to make way for new roundabouts at Old Hwy 41 and Kennesaw Ave. But that means headaches for drivers as a connection to and from West Cobb is closed. The first phase will be completed in early August, then move up to a section up to the visitor's center with the final piece finished sometime this fall from the park entrance to Old Hwy 41. 'Our goal is to maintain access to the visitor's center, to the park, 100% through this project,' Blackwell said. Once utility work on Stilesboro Road is done, look for closures on Old Hwy 41 with construction of those roundabouts to start sometime in summer 2026. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Bloomington Water department taking steps to fix water for residents
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (WMBD) — Residents have noticed a bad smell and taste of Bloomington's water, and the city is starting the process of fixing it through powdered activated carbon (PAC). Ed Andrews, director of water for the city of Bloomington, doesn't know when the water will be better for residents, but said they are trying. 'We are hopeful that we're going to turn the page maybe this weekend, but we're just getting that system online, so I'd hate to say, 'Oh, by this magic date, we're going to be back to normal,' but that is definitely what we're striving for.' The reason the water tastes and smells bad is due to the amount of Methylisoborneol, commonly referred to as MIB, in Lake Evergreen, the city's new water reservoir. The Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority said MIB is produced by algae and bacteria, and usually occurs in the late summer and early fall, which creates an earthy or musty smell. Andrews said the MIB of raw water from Lake Evergreen last week or the week prior was 480 nanograms per liter. It increased to 490 last week. 'Last fall we were at 37 (nanograms per liter) in Lake Bloomington and we were at 120 nanograms per liter in Lake Evergreen,' he said. 'Both of those subsided to where we were less than ten for most of December and January. Then in January it started spiking up again.' The water department has begun the PAC process, which is supposed to bring down the MIB compound in the water. The city picked up the PAC from West Virgina, which was a 24-hour turnaround. They didn't want to wait for it to be shipped. In a news release, the city wrote that the PAC process is ongoing steadily, with the department slowly increasing the concentration of carbon used. 'Right now, the City is feeding PAC at a lower dose than the goal, but crews are working to increase it,' Katherine Murphy, a spokesperson for the city wrote. 'This morning, they began swapping out equipment at the feed system to bring a larger unit online. The smaller system was adding PAC at 7ppm, but the ideal level is 20ppm. We are continuing to ramp this target.' No date was given for when the city expects the water to be back to normal. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
