It was alarming information to receive smack dab in the heart of a severe drought – a backlog of more than 700 water leaks in the city of Atlanta. Just sitting by idly, waiting to be repaired. According to the data obtained from the city of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management, some of the leaks have been pouring into the streets for years.

College Park resident Rob MacArthur says he reached out to the city to have one of those leaks repaired. “I’ve talked to the people from the city. They came and then they left,” MacArthur said. The leak still flows.

An investigation conducted by CBS 46 Investigates two weeks ago uncovered a leak in Southwest Atlanta gushing hundreds of gallons of water by the hour for more than a month. Questioning how a leak of this magnitude could go unrepaired this long led to the receipt of the leak backlog documents. The documents revealed that this leak was simply one of more than 700 that were flowing freely in the city of Atlanta.

The documents also revealed that 23% of the leaks have been flowing for more than one year. 5% more than two years. The winner of the title of longest running leak? A monumental 980 days.

Horace Copridge, also of College Park, says it took nearly three years to repair a leak near his home. “We had one right around the corner that leaked on and off for three years and they finally came out and fixed it.”

However the documents also showed that there is progress being made. As recent as June of this year there were more than 1700 leaks on the backlog list. That’s a 1000 leak decrease.

Watershed management’s Eddie Roberts says they are working hard to reduce the number. “It’s embarrassing. Very embarrassing. But we are trying to be proactive on it. Basically now we realize we made a mistake and we’ve got to clean it up.”

CBS 46 Investigates uncovered another potential problem –poor record keeping. The records show a two year water leak at one Buckhead address. But when we went to the address, we couldn’t find a leak. We asked Mr. Roberts how much time is spent responding to leaks that don’t exist. “Quite a bit. Quite a bit. And I’ll have to admit that it is something that we are embarrassed about because it is something that we feel we should have done up front,” Roberts said.

The City claims that messy records were left over from United Water and the Bill Campbell Administration. But four years later, the city admits they have at least 500 true leaks and limited manpower to repair them. The end result is wasted, precious water. An amount that Mr. Roberts says can’t be quantified.

“We don’t know for sure, because we simply do not know on these leaks exactly what type of leaks they are.” He added that it would be pure speculation if he were to do so.