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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wormius
It seems like there are water main breaks occurring on a yearly basis along 14th St NW. Does the City intend to ever proactively fix the infrastructure there? It only seems to be 14th; I have not heard of so many water main breaks anywhere else in the city.
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Direct from my colleagues in Water Services:
The water main break at 14 ST. NW and 14 Ave NW was not on the same pipe that had breaks earlier in the year. The break was a small 6” diameter distribution main located in the vicinity. Because of its proximity to the 14 St main, it was referenced as such. The 6” inch distribution watermain serving this community has had a strong service history. A condition assessment will be conducted, in order to further understand the cause of the break. As for the water feedermain on 14th ST , it has been flagged for further inspection due to age, condition and the recent series of breaks. Once the inspection is complete, we will determine what actions need to be taken to reduce the frequency of breaks.
Water main breaks can happen anywhere there are water lines. A number of factors contribute to watermain breaks. They include pipe age, pipe material and soil conditions, temperature, and pressure changes in the system. All breaks are tracked through our Asset Management Program, which involves analyzing and inspecting the water network to identify opportunities for infrastructure upgrades (repairs, replacement, anodes, liners etc.). It is through our Asset Management program that planned worked is determined vs responding to unexpected breaks (reactive).
Water continues to invest in the system - spending on average $10 million plus every year on main replacement projects. Water estimates the cost of a catastrophic main break to be $1.5 million for repair and clean-up, compared to the cost of a feedermain inspection and planned repair of one pipe segment of $0.1 million. Therefore Water will continue to takes a proactive approach by conducting inspections and planned repairs. In the past two years alone, Water has inspected over 25 km of feedermain, which has helped to identify and replace six pipe segments with damage severe enough to become catastrophic breaks. Since 1980 Water has seen the number of emergency watermain repairs reduced by 85 per cent by replacing corroded mains with new pipe, and by reducing the rate of corrosion through installing simple devices on pipes that prevents corrosion.