Johnson City maintains 947 miles of water lines and operates two drinking water treatment plants. The Watauga River and Unicoi Springs serve as the city’s water sources.

Water and sewer are among the most important and expensive services offered by a municipality.

Still, few city residents give much thought to those services until a line breaks and they are left without.

efore 1955, Johnson City’s waste water treatment process was little more than dumping raw sewage into Brush Creek. Today, the city maintains three state-of-the-art waste water treatment facilities — Knob Creek and Brush Creek for the municipal system and the Regional Waste water Treatment Plant, located along Tenn. Highway 75.

Johnson City administrators have been careful to prepare a long-range plan to address much-needed capital needs in the water and sewer systems.

Municipalities with overburdened or failing sewer systems often find themselves placed under state and federal scrutiny. There are a number of communities in Tennessee that are under moratoriums that prohibit new building permits to be issued until major improvements are made to their systems.

Johnson City officials say they don’t want to become one of those areas where development has been strangled by an inadequate water/sewer system.

That’s why it has been necessary for the city to make a major investment in improving its infrastructure.

“I think we’re very fortunate,” Tom Witherspoon. the director of the city’s water/sewer services, told the Press last week. “We have two outstanding water sources. This (city) commission and previous commissions continue to reinvest in the water infrastructure here that serves our customers.”

Such improvements in recent years have helped to make sure Johnson City water/sewer customers have confidence that when they flush the toilet or turn on the kitchen tap, things will work the way they should.