MACON, Ga. (WGXA) — A local property and business owner says his future may depend upon aging infrastructure. Now, he’s concerned about what it means for his business.
Chris Murray owns ABC Liquor Store on Martin Luther King Blvd. in Macon. He said that in February, the Macon Water Authority (MWA) turned off services to his property. It happened a month after Murray received a letter from the MWA after they were contacted by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) in October 2023.
The letter stated that GDOT had contacted the MWA about their need to repair a section of the State Route.
“With a thorough examination of the sanitary and storm water systems, we have found that the cause of this road defect is due to a sewer lateral line from your property that unlawfully discharges into the storm water system,” the letter, dated January 10, stated.
“I just purchased this property last year, and I inherited all of these problems,” Murray told WGXA Thursday evening outside his store while in shock and disbelief. “There’s a spot in the middle of the highway that they want to fix. That’s what they want to tell me. Not the 8,000-pound trucks, but the lateral line did this.”
Murray attended an MWA meeting earlier in the day on Thursday and spoke before the board about his situation.
“I went to the engineer and a man told me in 1994 they had this problem. The sewage was going into the storm drain. Like I asked them at the (MWA) meeting; if they knew about this problem, and if it was a big thing with EPA, why didn’t y’all take the same initiative to find out how many more buildings, cause there are a lot of abandoned buildings on this street. You would never know until they run that dye test into the water you would never know,” Murray.
He said he’s not been contacted by the Department of Transportation or the Environmental Protection Agency about the issue.
However, without running water to support his property and potentially facing an expensive problem to resolve, Murray has felt hopeless.
“Nobody wants to take responsibility,” he said. “I get told to go get a lawyer. Nobody got 20 to 30,000 dollars to do a job like this. You know, I’m just left without right now.”
Murray said the lateral line isn’t damaged. Instead, he said it was improperly installed which resulted in sewage leaking into storm drains for decades.
WGXA was unable to reach GDOT or the EPA prior to the publication of this article.