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Repairing watermain break likely to cost $12,000: CAO

January 13, 2016   ·   0 Comments

One of three reports Shelburne CAO John Telfer presented to town council earlier this month dealt with the watermain break that put residents on alert two days before Christmas.

At the first Council meeting of 2016, held Monday, January 9, CAO John Telfer told councillors the emergency operations office operated from 5 p.m. until 1 a.m. December 23 and resumed December 24 at 9 a.m., shutting down an hour later “with news of the break being managed.”
As for the cost to the Town, Mr. Telfer said the break will be covered under operational repairs. “At this point, the final bill is unknown but estimated to be around $12,000. The cost was significantly reduced by being in the remote areas where urban standards are not evident.”

He said that if the same break had occurred downtown or on one of the residential areas, “the risk and the cost would have been significantly more.”

“Finding the break was the key adventure overnight until Dec 24 at approximately 8:00 a.m.,” said the CAO, “and the discovery allowed us to isolate (using a valve shutoff) and repair quickly.” He said,“Public Works staff secured the location approximately four metres north of Wansbrough Way on County Rd. 124” where the water was found to be draining into a ditch on the west side of the road.

Regarding the break in the pipe, which was installed in the mid 1980’s, the CAO had said previously that it was “always difficult to determine water main breaks as piping ages over 30 years. The exact cause of the break is unknown, but based on their collective experience, Public Works staff have suggested the pipe may have been resting on a rock, and over the years the pipe weakened at that point eventually resulting in the break.”

He advised that the repair work was finished by 12:15 p.m. and by 5:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve the Town was “out of high risk for firefighting and back to normal operations.”

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