It was a cold, windy afternoon — not the type of day to be playing outside in the water.
But for the crew at Bradford City Water Authority, it’s all in a day’s work. On Friday, it was the fourth water main leak so far this week that crews repaired in less-than-optimal conditions.
Steve Disney, executive director of the Water Authority, said Friday’s repair on Interstate Parkway was a 6-inch leak between Bradford Area High School and Bradford Regional Medical Center.
“The leak today took around three hours to repair,” Disney said. ”The crews did a great job making this repair with the water service ‘live.’ No disruption in water service was required.”
He explained several similar leaks were likely caused by the weather over the past week.
“Our distribution crews repaired a 6-inch line on Hilton Street, an 8-inch line between Campus Drive and Hobson Place and a 6-inch line on Boylston Street,” the director said. “All four of these leaks shared a common theme, all being a 360-degree circumferential crack that was repaired using stainless steel repair clamps.
“We are speculating that these types of cracks occur during weather events that we have experienced over the last couple of weeks, with wild temperature swings over a relatively short period of time, which causes the ground to shift and heave,” Disney said.
The water authority is planning a new transmission main project, which won’t solve issues relating to leaky lines in weather events, but will create a redundancy in the supply lines.
Disney explained further.
“The new main will help to secure our main water supply artery which flows from the water treatment plant at the end of West Corydon, all the way to our finished water reservoir #4 which is on the hillside above the hospital,” he said. “This reservoir capacity is 3.5 million gallons.
“We are concerned to have only one current transmission main,” Disney added.
In 2015, when there was a major break on the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford campus, there was a water shortage in the community that lasted about a week.
With a redundant main, the idea is that the second line will be used while the first is repaired, thereby ensuring there will be enough of a water supply for the entire community.
“Once the new line is in and operational, the existing 24-inch transmission main will be fully rehabilitated or replaced,” Disney said. “The new water line, plus the rehabilitation/replacement of the existing water main will allow us to have true redundancy to supply the finished water into the system.”
He gave an update on the status of the project as well, saying it continues to move forward.
“We submitted our formal project permit application to the Department of Environmental Protection last week. They have 60 working days to review, and we’re hoping to be able to meet the initial PENNVEST deadline of May 1st to submit for funding,” he explained.
“The project is expected to be able to go out for bid later this year with construction starting as soon as practical,” Disney said.
After tackling the new line and replacing the current line, which will be long projects, the authority plans to address smaller lines.
“We will be shifting our focus to the smaller distribution water mains ranging in size between 4-inch and 20-inch and will begin rehabilitation/replacement of those water mains,” Disney said, referring to future projects.
“We will rely on the experience of our distribution crew members to help determine the priority of which water lines to work on first, also taking into consideration the age of the water main, pipe material type, location and criticality of customers being served, current condition, and the frequency and number of breaks/leaks of a particular stretch of pipe,” he said.
Overall, it’s a major undertaking and will address “critical infrastructure,” Disney said.
“We are focusing on effective asset management.”
