Cohoes deals with water main break
COHOES, N.Y. » Residents and businesses on Van Schaick Island were without water for a portion of Tuesday after a water main break occurred.
Mayor Shawn Morse said the break was caused by an independent contractor working on a water and sewer separation project. The contractor hit the main water line that supplies water to all of the island section of Cohoes.
“There was a construction company down on River Street doing a water and sewer separation project and somehow they accidentally hit the main around 5:30 [Tuesday] morning, explained Morse on Tuesday afternoon. “It took about three or four hours to be able to shut it all down and with the old infrastructure it’s hard to find the ability to turn off the water, and that ended up requiring us to go almost the whole entire island — from one end to the other — to get it shut down because it was such a big main.”
The city’s DPW and the contractor immedi-
ately began repairing the break to restore water, with officials having all water restored by early afternoon time on Tuesday.
Morse said officials fixed the water main break, and that they also added a new “shut off” in that spot.
“One of the things that we’re trying to do for our infrastructure improvements is we’re documenting every time we have a water break as to whether or not the shut off’s were 100-plus years old and if they were working or not; and if they weren’t working we have a list of those and we’ll go around and start replacing them as part of our infrastructure,” said Morse.