S&WB: 'We cannot juggle anymore'

Turning the spigot outside her empty house in early 2006, Tanya Harris expected another disappointment.

Safe drinking water had been restored months earlier to every other neighborhood in New Orleans. But because of the catastrophic damage in the Lower 9th Ward, faucets there still ran dry.

So when Harris felt the gush as she cranked the small handle attached to the water meter, she let out a scream. Then she danced around her muddy yard.

"Of course, all my copper pipes were broken, so it was flowing all over the house. It was a shower inside the house," recalled Harris, a community organizer. "But it was a welcome sight. I was just thinking: This is the beginning of me coming back home."

It would take another six months or so before the water running through Harris' faucet would be certified as safe to drink, marking a significant milestone in the patchwork restoration of an east bank system totally disabled by Hurricane Katrina for the first time since its construction began in 1906.

Today, water continues to flow to every corner of Orleans Parish, suggesting perhaps that trouble has waned. But local and federal officials say the system, which limped along before the storm with aging equipment and leaky pipes, is nearing its breaking point.
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