The Waterbury Water Department is moving ahead with making permanent pipe replacements to the Thomaston Avenue water main following the major water line failure earlier this month.
“The plan of attack right now is the 36-inch high-pressure main. That will be first. That way I can tie in the existing 42-inch main that we've been working on all summer,” City Water Superintendent Brad Malay said Monday. “At that point, we'll move over to the low service and fix the low service and the 12-inch which was the original culprit of this whole thing.”
Crews were able to move ahead on the repair efforts after fixing a leak that was impeding them from replacing the damaged pipes.
According to Waterbury Mayor Paul K. Pernerewski, Jr., there was a leak in the emergency stop valve that was put in when initial repairs were done to get water back to the city.
“We didn't do it until [Sunday] night because we did not want to try to get in there and do any work right before the Christmas holidays, given that sometimes we get unintended consequences when we touch these pipes,” Pernerewski said.
Overnight crews installed two line stop valves at about 1:30 a.m. Monday. Water had to be shut down for about 80 minutes, Malay said, to fix the leak.
“We did run into some air lock problems once we reintroduced water back into the pipe, but our crews were able to mitigate that in pretty rapid fashion,” Malay said.
Malay said repairwork on both the 36-inch main and the 42-inch main will bring the city’s water system back to a more stable place.
“By making this repair at this time, in conjunction with the 42, it's going to allow us to go back to being the city being fed by both high service mains, which we've been without for the past seven months or eight months now,” Malay said. “That gives us a system of redundancy. Should we have a break somewhere? The other line is capable of taking care of the city.”
Roadway repairs are expected to begin as soon as the pipework is complete. Malay said residents can expect to wait about 10 to 12 days until the road is open again, so long as weather doesn’t interrupt repairs.
Post-Christmas water main break
On Friday, crews repaired an 8-inch water main break on Friday which affected the area between about 210 Oakville Avenue and Whitewood Road, according to the Mayor’s office.
There was no loss of water pressure to residents or businesses during the time of repair, Malay said.
According to Malay, this smaller break is to be expected. He said the city averages about 30 to 40 breaks a year in 4-inch mains up to 16-inch mains. These breaks are especially common in the wintertime, he said.
“They're not a huge deal. For instance, that one [on Oakville Avenue] was repaired almost live. We didn't even have to shut anything down or do anything,” Malay said.
Given its proximity to the Thomaston Avenue break that left residents without water for four days, Malay said he understands the concerns of residents with the city’s water system.
“It can always happen again,” Malay said. “You can always have a catastrophic break somewhere. All we can do is try to mitigate how we will handle it if it does happen.”
Malay said crews are going to start replacing some transmission main valves that have been failing over the past year. He has also asked for work to be done on at least five water main sections without waiting for the new fiscal year.
Those five water mains include one on Jared Avenue, two on Bunker Hill, a 24-inch further down on Thomaston Avenue and two additional 16-inches on that same street.
There is currently no timeline on those projects, Malay said.
