A “horrible” situation with Macomb’s water distribution system was avoided last weekend thanks to decisive action and skillful work, according to Public Works Director Alice Ohrtmann.
On Saturday, the city issued a request for the public to limit non-essential water usage after a pair of severe water main breaks compromised the entire system.
“There were a lot of variables that really could have made this really horrible,” Ohrtmann said, adding that the situation was “right at the top” on the scale of challenges that a public works department can face.
The debacle began Saturday morning after midnight with the report of a “big break” in the city’s 20-inch line, one of two that feeds the entire system. The leak was quickly located and the line shut off without further disruption, so repairs could begin.
Hours later, around 6 a.m., a worker coming into work at the plant noticed water bubbling from the ground. It was found to be another big break in the city’s second, 16-inch, main line.
With the 20-inch line down, the 16-inch line had to remain on, to avoid completely draining Macomb’s water towers, Ohrtmann said.
Meanwhile, there was fear that the line could completely disintegrate, quickly draining the entire system and leaving all customers on a boil order until the 20-inch line could be repaired and water quality tests were passed – at least a week.
By 5 p.m. Saturday, a crew from Laverdiere Construction had reached the leak. Ohrtmann estimates the line was losing about 300 gallons per minute.
“They started breaking out the pavement over where the leak was, and we had a little bit of a geyser there for a minute, but they were able to keep it under control,” Ohrtmann said. “The valves were shut. They were able to dewater it, and it turned out that the 16-inch pipe, which we believed to be one of the older pipes in the plant, had probably about a 2- to 3-inch diameter hole in it, and it was perfectly round.”
With that little bit of luck, the system was shut down for two hours while the Laverdiere crew capped it for full repair.
Ohrtmann noted that two hours would be the magic number to get the system back online before the towers ran out of water.
“We had plenty of water in the towers, and this whole time this has gone on, the water plant was able to keep the towers at a pretty decent level of volume of water,” Ohrtmann said. “So we always had a lot of water in the water towers. That was never an issue.”
The 16-inch line leak was fully repaired by 11:30 p.m. Saturday, and the 20-inch break was fixed on Thursday.
During a City Council meeting on Monday, aldermen and Mayor Mike Inman praised the work to remedy a potentially “disastrous” situation.
If the 16-inch line had completely failed and the entire system was put under a boil order, Ohrtmann said there would be bigger problems than inconvenience in households and restaurants.
“Even the hospital would’ve been impacted,” she said. “They need water. Some of the industries would’ve been impacted. We need water for firefighting. That’s a problem. If you lose that water, do you have enough water for a firefight?”
Ohrtmann said aging lines were the ultimate culprit, paired with seasonal rains – but it was uncanny that both main lines were so badly disrupted at the same time.
“We didn’t overreact, and we didn’t do a knee-jerk reaction on how to handle it,” she said. “We gathered all our information and we looked at all of our options and got down to what we finally did that worked – shut the valves off, get it fixed in under two hours and get the plant back online.”
