Jacqueline M. Echols. 2003. Perpetuating a Tradition of Failure - Combined Sewers as Wastewater Policy Community Impacts & Implications

Combined sewers are a left over relic of a time past but there is clearly an effective and organized attempt afoot to ensure that this approach to wastewater treatment remains the technology of choice for dealing with urban wastewater problems. In the case of Atlanta there are a number of distinct examples when taken together support the legitimacy of this claim. For example, the technical nature of implementing alternatives for abating the impact of combined sewers has caused heavy dependence by elected officials on bureaucrats and outside engineering consultants. This situation is exacerbated when elected officials, lacking confidence in the value of their own input, defer to those bureaucrats and technical consultants, allowing the latter to set and implement policy. In the wastewater management arena the consequences of this abdication of responsibility has and continues to have significant and long-term negative repercussions for environmental management practices in combined sewer neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia.