WASHINGTON — The winter has been 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, this was the second worst February on record,” says Lyn Riggins with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC).
According to Riggins, February saw 426 breaks. The average is 132.
And if recent weather is any indication, winter isn’t done yet.
“If we see temperatures 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 fluctuations are extremely hard on the pipes. But Riggins says WSSC customers have been extremely patient.
“We’ve been carrying a backlog of at least a dozen breaks every day for the past week. Typically, we’ll usually have four, five or six that need to be fixed. And we’ve had a least a dozen every day,” she says.
“The snow last week and the ice yesterday, it does slow our crews down but doesn’t stop them.”
But even with the numerous water main breaks, Riggins says, WSSC has more than doubled the number of new pipes being installed. In 2008, WSSC was installing new water main pipes at a rate of 25 miles per year. Now it’s at least 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.
“We’re 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. In addition, Riggins says a typical water main replacement project for one mile of water main costs about $1.4 million.
