Water Line breaks have been Major Problems for Westminster

Since Jan. 9, the City of Westminster has been dealing with a six-inch water line break at the intersection of East North Street and Oak Street at the railroad trestle. The city is aware this has been troublesome for lots of people north of the railroad tracks and specifically in the Clearmont Road, East North Street, North Piedmont and wider areas north and south of the railroad line along the Oak Street corridor. This water line had the potential to rupture and possibly threaten the area around the railroad trestle especially the threat of washing out the ground underneath the trestle. Since this occurred during the recent period of freezing rain, keeping water off the road surfaces to prevent ice was another big concern. For several days, since Jan. 5, specifically, a private contractor has been working to replace the leaking section of this line. The issue simply put was the inability to turn the water off at the point of repair. Everyone can sympathize how difficult it is to repair a water line when you cannot turn off high pressure water flow. There was discovered on Jan. 15, an “un-mapped,” unknown water main feeding back a large stream of water into the repair area that emanated from the old Beacon Mill property. As of Jan. 16, five new valves have been installed in the distribution system to isolate this part of the city’s water supply system from other parts, which hopefully in the future will keep this occurring north of the railroad tracks again. “This is an issue that should have been addressed years ago. Our contractor is using a system that allows new valves to be installed “wet” or when there is still some water flowing. Even this method has caused sporadic localized outages on Jan. 16. Hopefully the matter is now under control and highlights the necessity of examining more closely the improvements needed in our water distribution system,” said Westminster City Administrator Chris Carter.