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Show Vandalism, blackout deliver double blow to Lindon water supply Vandalism and a power outage combined to put a portion of Lindon ! out of water for several hours on j Saturday, June 25. The problem started when vandals pried open some of the city's 13 spring boxes in the canyons. The bent vents on the boxes allowed air ; to be introduced int j the lower water system. A piece of plywood had also been placed over one of the boxes by the vandals to prevent spring water from coming out. A power outage compounded the problem because the pumps from j the tanks qo not have an automatic reset mechanism. Thus when the power failed for a time, the pumps remained off. A lady drew the city's attention to the system failure when she phoned Assistant City Administrator Bill Green, complaining she had no water. This was about 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon. In checking, Green found the water in the 650,000-gallon tank had gotten very low. The level, in fact, was below the eight foot mark and thus had set off the safety pressure valve thus signaling the upper 2-million-gallon tank to begin draining. Due to air in the system, however, the upper tank soon became air-locked air-locked and stopped draining. Crew worked until about 11 :30 that night suctioning the lines to get the air out. Meanwhile they had fired up the Number 4 Well to provide water to residents. The water cutoff affected af-fected mainly those living in upper Lindon. Bill Green said there had not been any contamination into the water system since only air had entered. Dennis Houghton and Rick Ovard of the public works department went up into the canyons and repaired the boxes. Bill Green asked that the citizens help the city keep an eye on the spring boxes and pump stations so further vandalism can be prevented. The springs are located quite far up in the foothills making it impossible for the city to maintain constant surveillance of them. |