By: Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Grayson Utilities Commission discussed the process of repairing the break in the water line near Raider Mart at their regularly scheduled meeting last month. Utilities Director Gerald Haney said the break in question occurred at around 1 a.m. in the water line across the river from BJ’s Auto Sales to Raider Mart.
“The line blew out and we lost the East Tank almost immediately,” Haney told the commission.
The break and the resultant water loss caused a wash out, Haney said, leaving an extremely large hole.
“It was quite a massive blowout,” he said.
By 8 a.m. the crew was cutting blacktop to expose the damaged pipe and facilitate repairs.
“It undermined quite a big area, including a paved side road.”
Haney told the commission that an entire section or “stick” of water pipe was damaged, as was the tap itself. The saddle, he explained, had been leaking for some time before the break, and this particular section was not one of the sections that included sensors which would have helped to track the leak. When the leaking saddle finally “kicked,” it split the section of pipe, Haney explained. The section was 20 feet long, running from bell to bell, he said.
The very nature of the repair required made the job very difficult, Haney told the commission.
“You have to take all of that out so you can replace the section,” he said. “In total when we put it back it took 52 ton of rock.”
“As the valve to the east gets shut off, no water is going to the east tank,” Haney told the commission. “And as the day went on, no water went to either of the tanks.”
The tanks are 500,000 gallon capacity tanks with only one feed in.
“When they get about four feet of water you can manually pump them to the taller tank. This tank is 90 feet tall, and it creates higher pressure,” Haney told the commission. “So, all these areas that are higher on the ridge like Fairview Hill and Family Mountain get pressure from this tank.”
“But it fills out of the top, so you have to have the pumps on to give this area pressure,” he said.
Not everyone lost water at once, but Haney said the break could have potentially affected 1,700 people.
“And as the day went on and the longer we took to fix it, the lower the water levels became. And when we finally were able to turn it back on, it had a very long way to go to fill back up. It was almost empty at that point,” Haney said.
Complicating the repairs was a leak that started on the other side near the smaller tank. Haney said they were forced to allow that leak to continue until water levels raised, then eventually they were able to shut that side down temporarily to change the leaking valve. Haney said they consulted the Division of Water and were told that since the repair was done and water was back on relatively quickly, there was no need to pass out bottled water. There was, however, a boil water advisory issued.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
