by Margie Miller on 2015-06-23
A water main broke at 11:34 p.m. Wednesday, the 17th, in Grand Terrace and was contained sometime between 12:30 and 1 a.m. The water main break originated at Barton Road and Michigan Avenue. Water service was completely restored and roads were reopened by 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 18, said officials at Riverside Highland Water Company, the city's public water provider.
Riverside Highland Water Company's General Manager Don Hough shared the leak first began at 11:34 p.m. Wednesday night, June 17. “A Riverside Highland Water Company employee responded to the call immediately and contacted Craig Gudgeon, the company's distribution superintendent. While the rest of the water company's crew was called in for the emergency, all of the water valves were completely shut off sometime between 12:30 and 1 a.m. Thursday morning.”
The scope of needed repairs necessitated the additional help and equipment of an outside contractor, Merlin Johnson Construction, which Hough said was experienced in water main breaks. Crews began repair work around 2 a.m. Thursday morning, June 18.
"The water ran for about an hour to an hour and a half. We don't know how much water was lost at this time. Officials from the fire department had estimated a loss of approximately 1 million gallons. I don’t want to speculate what the cause might have been," said Hough. “At this time the water company is still investigating what caused the pipe to burst.
“Unfortunately, this incident occurred during the fourth year of below-normal rainfall,” said Hough, who would like to remind everyone to continue to make efforts to conserve water, especially now.
“It was determined that an approximate 20-foot section of PVC C-905 pipe blew out, causing the leak,” said Hough. “The leak caused one of the reservoirs - which hold water to prevent water pumps from running all hours - to nearly run dry, which left some residents without water service. Air was drawn into the lines and some residents experienced air in their own water lines as a result,” said Hough.
"We had to shut a small section of the city down to actually do the repair, but...fortunately we have a lot of wells and we were able to fill the reservoir up. Within a few hours that reservoir was full and the others never did go dry,” Hough said.
Receiving 93 phone calls the night the incident began, all of which were returned, Hough thanked the citizens of Grand Terrace for exercising graciousness and understanding during this critical time.
He also explained it's unusual for plastic pipe to burst in this way, and that the Riverside Highland Water company makes repairs and upgrades to the City's water infrastructure every year.
"This particular pipe was installed in 1999 and was warrantied for 50 years," he said. "It wasn’t 100-year-old pipe like you hear about in a lot of other places. It was a fairly new pipe, and for whatever reason, this one failed."
Since 1987, Riverside Highland Water Company has replaced approximately 70 percent of the city's old pipes, including the pipe that burst, through its capital improvement program. The company spends an estimated $500,000 to $1 million yearly to upgrade the system and replace infrastructure.
Hough reiterated the situation was made much easier through the understanding and cooperation shown by residents and wants to express his appreciation.
[END]
General Manager Donald Hough– Riv High Water Co
There was a leak in GT at 11:34 p.m. Wednesday. The first call we received, the person that was on call responded. The minute he got out there and saw what was happening he called our distribution superintendent who arrived --- meanwhile, the original person who got the call started turned off the valves.
About the time Craig got there, the valves were almost off, the superintendent. They had the water shut down to the leak between 12:30 and 1 in the morning so the water ran for about an hour to an hour and a half, we expect. We don’t know how much water was wasted at this time – we’ll know eventually, we don’t yet.
At that time, the rest of Riverside Highland Water Co crew was called in. Craig also called in a general contractor who deals with something like this because, even though we do fix leaks, this was such a major leak, it was on an important intersection and we just didn’t have enough personnel, plus they needed additional equipment, so he called a general contractor (Merlin/Marylin Johnson) and they arrived about 2 a.m., meanwhile all of our other employees were already there by that time.
We began to repair the leak. Actually, we had to dig up a section of pipe, about 20 foot section of pipe blew out. The pipe is PVC C-900 (plastic). (The 900 is kind of the thickness of it, but it’s a better way to label it.)
The pipe was installed in 1999.
Margie: A plastic pipe doesn’t normally go out.
Don: No. No. It’s warrantied for 50 years. The water, one of the reservoirs almost completely went dry. The others were all fine.
Margie: Okay, now explain to me reservoir.
Don: That’s what holds the water so that people can feed out of them so that the pumps don’t run all the time. In other words, if you don’t have reservoirs, the pumps would have to run continuously and they would have to fluctuate. So the reservoirs are what you hold the water in.
Margie: Okay, so in the Midwest they have these big tanks…
Don: Here, we have them on the ground. Because we’re on a hill, we don’t need to put them up high, the hill does the gravity for us. And so it almost ran one of the reservoirs dry, but the reservoir drained so quickly that it sucked air in, so it did get air into the lines. But the reservoir did not go completely dry but it did draw air into the lines. We had to shut a section of the city down, small section, to actually do the repair. But we filled the reservoir back up. Fortunately, we have a lot of wells and we were able to fill the reservoirs up and within a few hours the reservoirs… that reservoir was full and the others never did go dry.
Margie: Okay, now with the air in the lines, the public is going to experience some air coming out of their lines.
Don: Correct, and they did experience some air coming out of their lines. Also, at this time, as far as the piping and what caused the problem, we are still investigating. It’s going to take an investigation. I don’t want to say or even speculate what it was because we just don’t know and I don’t want to blame something that wasn’t the cause, so at this time, there needs to be an investigation to determine what caused the pipe to blow out. We don’t know at this time.
Margie: Well, journalism is who, what, when, where, why. So the why is the cause. You don’t want us to say it’s under investigation?
Don: No, you can say that. We don’t know the cause. I don’t want to speculate, because we just don’t know. We had everything back to normal by 3:30 in the afternoon as far as water supply, everything was back to normal 3:30 p.m. Thursday. Then the street was reopened and back to normal at 7:30 p.m. and it’s open and everything is back to normal right now.
Margie: Michigan and Barton. So Ollies gas station, that’s where this was going on? Did you get a photograph of the… I almost stopped to take a photograph of that.
Don: We do have photographs. In fact, CBS News, they have a photograph—
Margie: We can’t use their photograph.
Don: You can’t use their photograph. Okay I’ll get you a new one. The main thing I want people to know is it wasn’t an old pipe. It was a new pipe. In fact, we’ve replaced over 70 percent of the old pipes in GT since 1985, including that pipe. We’ve had a capital improvement program since that and we spend between 500,000 and 1 million dollars every year on this capital improvement program and to upgrade our system and replace infrastructure, and I’ve said, I mainly want people to know that intersection was replaced; it wasn’t 100-year-old pipe like you hear about a lot of these places. That was a fairly new pipe, that, for whatever reason, failed on us, but we’ll have to look into it and hopefully find out what the cause was.
If you want to put a little comment in there: I’d like to thank the citizens of Grand Terrace, the residents, since they’ve always been great, but they were especially great then. They were very understanding. We had over 93 calls the night before. We returned every one of their calls. And they were all very understanding. We have some very good residents in this town. The traffic control went perfect; people didn’t try to cut, didn’t do anything to endanger the workers. They were gracious, there wasn’t any honking of horns, they seem to understand that there was work to be done and they understood what needed to be done. And the few people that did go out of water, very understanding, and that’s one reason I enjoy working in GT. Nothing’s perfect, but it’s about as good as it gets.
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FIRST DRAFT:
Water service was restored and roads were reopened by 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 18, after a water main broke late Wednesday night in Grand Terrace, said officials at Riverside Highland Water Company, the city's public water works provider.
The main break originated at Barton Road and Michigan Avenue, causing flooding that leaked onto the nearby I-215 freeway and shut down the interstate. Riverside Highland Water Company's General Manager Don Hough praised the city's residents for their understanding, patience and cooperation as Riverside Highland and a general contractor worked to restore water service and reopen city roads.
Receiving 93 phone calls the night the incident began, all of which were returned, the citizens exercised graciousness during this critical time.
"They were very understanding," said Hough. "We have some very good residents in this town. Traffic control went perfect; people didn't try to cut, didn't do anything to endanger the workers. They were gracious. There wasn't any honking of horns. They understood there was work to be done and they understood what needed to be done."
The leak first began at 11:34 p.m. Wednesday night, June 17, said Hough. A Riverside Highland Water Company employee responded to the call and immediately contacted Craig Gudgeon, the company's distribution superintendent. While the rest of the water company's crew was called in for the emergency, and while Gudgeon made his way to the site of the incident, the water valves were shut off sometime around 12:30 or 1 a.m. Thursday morning, said Hough.
"The water ran for about an hour to an hour and a half, we expect. We don't know how much water was wasted at this time. We'll eventually know. We don't know yet," said Hough.
The scope of needed repairs necessitated the additional help and equipment of an outside contractor, Merlin Johnson Construction, which Hough said was experienced in water main breaks.
Crews began repair work around 2 a.m. Thursday morning, June 18.
It was determined that an approximate 20-foot section of PVC pipe blew out, causing the leak, said Hough. The leak caused one of the reservoirs - which hold water to prevent water pumps from running all hours - to nearly run dry, which left some residents without water service. Air was drawn into the lines and some residents experienced air in their own lines as a result, said Hough.
"We had to shut a small section of the city down to actually do the repair, but... fortunately we have a lot of wells and we were able to fill the reservoir up. Within a few hours that reservoir was full and the others never did go dry."
He also explained it's unusual for plastic pipe to burst in this way, and was puzzling because the company makes repairs and upgrades to the city's water infrastructure every year.
"The pipe was installed in 1999 and was warrantied for 50 years," he said. "It wasn’t 100-year-old pipe like you hear about in a lot of these places. It was a fairly new pipe, that, for whatever reason, failed on us."
According to Hough, Riverside Highland Water Company has replaced over 70 percent of the city's old pipes since 1985, including the pipe that burst, through its capital improvement program. The company spends an estimated $500,000 to $1 million yearly to upgrade the system and replace infrastructure. Since 1987, the company has replaced more than 36 miles of water main, including where the leak occurred, he said.
At this time the water company is still investigating what caused the pipe to burst, said Hough.
By 3:30 p.m. Thursday, June 18, water service was restored to all Grand Terrace residents and the streets were reopened by 7:30 p.m.
Hough reiterated the situation was made much easier through the attitude of understanding shown by residents.
"The few people that did go out of water were very understanding, and that’s one reason I enjoy working in Grand Terrace. Nothing’s perfect, but it’s about as good as it gets," said Hough.