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Show JV2p errors' create :NL water woes . i By JUDY JENSEN Editor ' ' " NORTH SALT LAKE-Sub-. freezing temperatures and what for t a time eppeared to be a corqcay of ; c .:rs lta.r.cxed the efforts of city : vs to restore water to about 75 zs during the Christmas holi- ' yor Jake Sisr.ons praised the -rs for their ('"'"ion and trie;; :a for th .r t.rsuindlng wht wc3 T r sni3 nearly 36 ftcirgw;:' tws'iCr. ' rdlrj to T " 'z Vcrks Di-.".zi Di-.".zi VccJ, it i'l tesan on , Dcccr.bcr 27, a 11 a.m. ; "O I - "j c" ys cf c-.cv, we 'jVvO Ud a leak in Cz line Ho the water tank on the hilLRely ing on maps that eventually proved ., to be incorrect, crews, led by Mr. " -Wood 'and Street Superintendent Jeff Tingey, began to dig on Center Street and 350 East to uncover the.. , leak. : - ' "We were looking for a six inch line and we found a 14 inch line W'hiCh the map indicated had been -t abandoned, but it hadn't," said Mr., Wood incredulously, "The original steel Une was still in use and there, : were no valves mapped at all! Ho' , tr-' ' si that the six inch line that .- w ; z , zzzi tote under the curb air "r that t.z crews had re-rr.c-. v actually an eight inch line Ccut two feet from the curb.. The chc"c."2e then became to find The valves to shut off the line, . Woods Cross City came to the . rescoe when North Salt .Lake workers found two feet of concrete . . ; had been poured over the valves. . Woods Cross loaned North Salt . ' Lake its jackhammer and the crews, who were by this time standing in a trench filled with three feet of frcez- h ing water, began the long task of .uncovering the valves. , ' ' "Jeff and 1 went home at 3:30 , a.m. thinking the crews would un- cover the valves and shut off the - leak, but we were called at 7 a.m. ' and told that it was still flowing, ' said Mr. Wood. He explained that . when the valves were finally un-' un-' covered, the crews discovered that there was no valve box and that one J - - : 11 of the valves had been shut off, "for : who knows how many years, and the other one was leaking," Mr. Wood said. It was determined that " in order to shut off the flow in the line, valves in another location had to be turned off. That accomplished, the city began the arduous task of ' repairing the breaks in the line. "It took us until noon that day to re-pressure re-pressure the line and as soon as we did the "T" broke! It was so cold," w said Mr. Wood remembering the ' freezing temperatures. ". 4 , They then began the search for a replacement "T" and during that time three more breaks in water ' ; , lines in other parts of the city were ; . o coNT.rJuaONPACE2 NSL water woes " O CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 reported. Weary crews scrambled to gather what was left of their forces to try to correct the newly reported problems. "South Davis Water crews fixed one of the leaks for us and we were really grateful for their help," said Mr. Wood who explained that at the : same time,.it was reported that two of the city's snow plows were out of service and needed immediate repairs. re-pairs. When the replacement parts were finally found, the crews were able to repair the break. "The old steel "T" had worn so thin I could pick it up myself and throw it out of the hole;" said Mr. Wood. By comparison, compar-ison, the new replacement "T" had to be lowered by machine it was so heavy. . Water service was finally restored to the last of the homes that had been affected by 11 p.m. Thursday. Mayor Simmons said nearly all of the residents were sympathetic to the plight of the crews. "We. had a lot of people - showing up with hot soup and hot chocolate for the crews," he said. He said the city had learned a . great deal from the experience. City officials met on Thursday of last week to evaluate the problems and to establish a standard operating procedure during this kind of emergency.' emer-gency.' According to Mr. Wood, much of the problem was created by the fact that the records they were relying on were too old or in some cases non-existent. The new one million gallon water tank the city instaUedJa 1987 greatly-reduced (he effects of this problem. prob-lem. "Without that tank the entire hillside would have been without water,' 'explained Mr. Wood. City officials have made an effort during the past four years to up-" grade not only the system, but also their records to enable them to ac- curately map the water system. This" crisis has made officials aware of the critical need for accurate records, re-cords, and efforts will be increased to complete the re-mapping that has -begun. |
