Atlanta panel backs 2029 deadline for Adamsville water-pump upgrades

Atlanta’s City Utilities Committee recommended Oct. 13 giving the Adamsville Pump Station upgrades 958 more days to reach final completion, moving the contract deadline from Nov. 7, 2026, to June 22, 2029.⁠[1]

Kelsea Bond, Liliana Bakhtiari, Alex Wan and Andrea Boone voted in favor, according to the committee’s posted draft minutes. Their unanimous recommendation is not final approval of the extension. The legislative history lists full Council consideration as pending Oct. 19 at 1 p.m.; that listing does not guarantee a final vote.⁠[1]

Ordinance 26-O-1553 would authorize Change Order No. 1 for the agreement with Ruby-Collins/Benchmark, LLC Joint Venture. It would leave the work’s scope and the $29,318,282 contract ceiling unchanged, adding time rather than another payment.⁠[1]

The legislation identifies two sources of delay: project decisions affecting pump sizing and electrical voltage slowed procurement, and the contractor reported substantially longer supply-chain lead times for critical equipment, including the generator. The ordinance does not identify who made those project decisions or provide an equipment-delivery timetable.⁠[1]

Watershed Management’s stated case for the extension is that it would allow delivery of long-lead materials and keep construction moving without changing the approved work or increasing the contract amount.⁠[1]

The project’s purpose is added reliability. Contractor Ruby-Collins describes a new pump rated at 20 million gallons a day to provide pumping redundancy, an expanded building to house it, and expanded discharge piping. The scope also includes electrical systems, instrumentation, controls and backup generators.⁠[2]

Those are intended improvements, not a verified account of what is operating today. The reviewed records do not establish which upgrades are already in service or how the proposed extension would affect current water service. A June 2029 final contract deadline therefore should not be read as a demonstrated timetable for when every improvement would become available.⁠[1][2]

Even if the ordinance advances, its text requires legal approval, execution by the mayor or a designee, clerk attestation and delivery to the joint venture before the change order binds the city.⁠[1]