Water main breaks a winter hazard

In a country like Canada, the winter months are going to typically result in some water main breaks in most of our cities. Yorkton is no exception, and city administration hopes that people of the city can help them deal with the problem.

It has not been an abnormal year explains James Kluk, Water and Sewer Systems Manager with the Public Works Department, but it has been a year with some high profile breaks, including one in front of City Hall.

The City Hall break was a service line, rather than a main. Service lines are often at risk in the city, largely due to corrosion of the soil. Old pipes are also typically more at risk for breakage. They’re more difficult to locate, Kluk says, since they don’t leak as much water as a main break.

The extreme changes in weather that the city has experienced for the past couple months put it at greater risk for a break, explains Kluk, with shifting ground and stress on the pipes.

There are 200 kms of water lines in the city, 1,800 isolation valves used to isolate water when breaks occur, and 6200 service connections for both residential and commercial customers.

A typical year will see 15 water line breaks, as well as service leaks, which are also an average of 15 a year but are getting more common as service lines age, Kluk explains.

“It’s not an epidemic by any means.”

What the city does when a break occurs depends on the break, but with a main break they typically install a clamp to seal it off and stop the flow of water. If a line has an abnormally high number of breaks, that is when they start considering replacing the entire main.

“It basically is a band-aid that goes over a water main, it goes over a hole or a cracked pipe,” explained Kluk.

The city does need the public’s assistance when it comes to water breaks, because they can’t repair a water break without knowing where they are. If someone spots water bubbling up in the city, Kluk wants them to phone public works at 306-786-1760. This is a 24 hour line, and people should not hesitate to call, and if the line is busy, it could just mean that someone else is also reporting the problem. Kluk notes that the weekend saw a break on Sunday evening, and thanks to someone calling in they were able to start working on it as soon as possible.

“If somebody is getting water in their basement, we want to mitigate those issues. If your neighbor is not home, they might have a problem in their house, so if you call us, we can get on it as soon as possible.”