by Alex Brooks
On Saturday, February 22, pipes in the Petersburgh Water District pump house broke. The damage proved to be difficult to repair. After shutting off the system to clean out a chlorination line in the pump house that had become plugged, Water District Superintendent Ben Krahforst completed the job and re-opened the valves and turned the pumps back on. Then a severe water hammer occurred, which shattered the main line from Well #2 and damaged connections in the manifold.
[private]In this situation the break could not be isolated from the tank because a Jamesbury valve on the bypass pipe could not be closed completely. The result was a steady flow of water from the tank running out onto the floor of the pump house. Since no valve was available to stop this flow, Krahforst made a wooden plug from a tree and managed to slow the leak down to about three gallons per minute.
The plans showed a valve in the main line between the tank and the pump house, but it is underground, and no measurements were given to show exactly where it is. Krahforst asked Highway Superintendent Ray Harrison and his crew to dig between the tank and the pump house to find the valve. They found the valve and turned it off, which stopped the leak so that the pipes could be repaired. However, this meant that no water could be pumped into the tank. Krahforst estimated that at that point there was about ten days supply of water at normal usage levels. On Monday Krahforst called in R.I. Baker to repair the pipes, which he did on Monday and Tuesday, and the water was turned back on first thing on Wednesday morning, February 26. At that point the tank was down to about 20 feet, which is about half full.
By mid-afternoon on Wednesday the tank had 28 feet of water in it. The normal “full” level is 38 feet of water.
In the course of the work, a new valve was installed on the bypass pipe so that this problem will not happen again.
Krahforst said he wanted to thank the highway crew for responding quickly in this emergency.[/private]