The city plans to repair water valves to prevent broken water mains like the one Feb. 13.
Courtesy | Nic Rowan
A broken water main discolored water and lowered water pressure for some city residents on Feb. 13.
The break, near the corner of West Carleton Road and Mechanic Road, was due to an old pipe, said Jeff Gier, the City of Hillsdale’s director of water and sewer.
“Most of our infrastructure in town is pretty old,” Gier said. “This was an 8-inch cast iron pipe. Anything that’s cast iron is dated 60-plus years older than what we want to put in the ground, on average. We were able to isolate this section, and it didn’t have any services run off of it.”
The city won a $2.9 million federal grant for community development in October. Gier said the city would exclusively spend the money on water and sewer projects to avoid incidents like this in the future.
“On the water side, one of our issues with the main breaks is having valves that work properly so that we can isolate those issues,” Bauer said. “With this grant, we are going to go through and replace about 70 valves in the city.”
Emily Carrington, a city resident, said she noticed water discoloration in her home’s plumbing.
“When flushing the toilet, I noticed the toilet water was brown and assumed that it was just that my daughter had forgotten to flush the toilet,” Carrington said. “So I flushed a couple of times and noticed things weren’t getting better. I started checking taps and asking neighbors. It really didn’t appear to run brown. It wasn’t until you sort of collected it in a cup. You could tell that it was a funny color.”
The Hillsdale Board of Public Utilities announced the break on Facebook the day it happened. According to Gier, sediments and minerals being mixed into the water caused the discoloration.
“Due to the size of the leak, water discoloration may occur due to sediments and minerals being stirred up by the flow,” the BPU announcement said. “Please note that your water is safe to drink. Running a tap or faucet on cold, for a few minutes, should alleviate the discoloration.”
Gier said the water was safe to drink because the high pressure of the water pushed contaminants out of the pipe instead of into it.
“When you have low pressure, it actually brings elements around the pipe, inside the pipe, and into the water system,” Gier said. “We didn’t have that. Everything was pushed out to the point that we could isolate.”
Carrington said she believed the statement, but waited until after the color disappeared to refill her family’s water filter.
“I cooked with our hot water because it seemed like the hot water tank had been filled with clean water,” Carrington said. “So I had at least a little bit in reserve to get through the afternoon and early evening.”
City Engineer Kristin Bauer said the main break carried no long-term damage.
“Nobody is shut off,” Bauer said. “There’s no lack of service for anybody.”
Water main breaks in Hillsdale are common, according to Gier.
“We expect a couple more probably, two more would be my guess,” he said. “That’s purely speculation. We’ve had other times when you won’t get any, and I think the high was 19 main breaks in one winter.”
Bauer estimated 10-15% of the valves in Hillsdale’s system are not functional. She said dysfunctional valves allow main breaks to affect more homes and businesses in the city.
“Typically what you’re trying to do is minimize the impact when you do shut down the mains,” Bauer said. “But sometimes you just don’t have the valves to allow for that.”
