WASHINGTON — The winter has been聽too much for some area water mains. Several have broken, turning morning and evening commutes into nightmares.
“Looking back at our statistics all the way back to 1976,聽this was the second worst February on record,”聽says Lyn Riggins聽with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC).
According to Riggins, February saw聽426 breaks.聽The average is 132.
And if recent weather is any indication, winter isn’t done yet.
“If we see temperatures聽go up to 50 degrees this week and then drop back down again, we could see another spike in water main breaks,” says Riggins.
Temperature聽fluctuations are聽extremely hard on the聽pipes. But Riggins says WSSC customers have been extremely patient.
鈥淲e鈥檝e been carrying a backlog of at least a dozen breaks every day for the past week.聽 Typically, we’ll usually have four, five or six聽that need to be fixed.聽聽 And we’ve had a least a dozen every day,” she says.
鈥淭he snow last week and the ice yesterday,聽it does slow our crews down but聽doesn’t stop them.”
But even with the numerous water main聽breaks, Riggins says,聽WSSC聽has more than doubled the number of new pipes being聽installed.聽In聽2008, WSSC was聽installing new water main pipes at a rate of 25 miles per year.聽Now it’s at least聽55 miles per year.
Pipes range in age, but their history of breakage is a huge factor on whether they’ll be replaced. Some pipes placed in the 70s might need fixed before older ones.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not in a position to replace 100 miles of pipe (per year) to speed up the process.”
Designing pipelines and getting them into the ground both take time.聽In addition,聽Riggins says a typical聽water main replacement project for聽one mile of water main costs聽about $1.4 million.
