Eastenders face ‘dry’ day

(CNS): With two major water leaks on the same morning in two different parts of the island, Water Authority customers were left with dry taps for the best part of the day yesterday. At 3:00 am on Wednesday 20 August a pipeline leak was identified in the vicinity of the Bodden Town Police Station, and while crews were making arrangements for the repair a second leak occurred near  Associated Industries on North Sound Road.

Apologising to its customers in a written statement, the Water Authority explained that the leak in Bodden Town had affected areas east of the Police Station, which included some 861 customers who were without water for approximately 12 hours, and the leak in the vicinity of Associated Industries in George Town resulted in low water pressure issues.

“The Bodden Town main line break took place at a critical location on the main that services the eastern districts, hence the reason service was interrupted”, explained Rob Robler, Chief Operations Manager. “We were fortunate that the location of the break in George Town was such that we were still able to provide service to all customers, with just a few intermittent low water pressure issues.”

Robler added the authority was unsure why the problems had occurred but noted that crews had worked hard to get repair the damage as quickly as they could. “The exact cause of the breaks is difficult to ascertain as a number of factors come into play such as the age of the pipeline, ground conditions, and stress on the pipeline from heavy traffic,” he said.

Dr Gelia Frederick-van Genderen, Director of the Authority, offered her regrets over the inconvenience to customers and thanked everyone for their patience and understanding while the crews worked to restore the service.

“I would also like to thank our emergency staff for their responsiveness and for working so diligently to repair the line as quickly as possible,” she added.  

Tom van Zanten, Deputy Director, explained the Authority’s plans that will help mitigate such an outage in the future.

“The North Side Pumping Station which is currently under construction with completion expected later this year will minimize scenarios such as these, as significantly fewer customers will be affected by pipeline breaks. Once operational, we will be able to pump water from the North Side Water Works to our customers in the eastern districts,” he said.

The Water Authority also said that it reviewing plans to replace the pipeline in the North Sound Rd area as a measure to reduce the occurrences of the breaks that have been experienced.