Documents shredded free on Saturday
Residents can drop off up to three boxes of documents to be shredded from 9 to noon Saturday at the old maintenance yard at Third and Fourth streets. Condor Document Services is offering the free shredding and asks that two nonperishable food items be donated by residents for each box. Proceeds will go to the Helping Center of Marble Falls.
Boxes can contain paper, file folders, staples and paper clips. Large binder clips, threering binders and hanging files should be removed.
For information, call the Chamber of Commerce at 830693-2815.
Pflugerville officials estimate they’ll spend $750,000 replacing three pipes at a pump station that water travels through on its way to thousands of households.
The life span of the pump station’s pipes, constructed about nine years ago, should have been 30 to 50 years, assistant city manager TomWord said. It’s unclear who’s to blame for the deterioration of the pipes, officials said at a City Council meeting Tuesday evening.
“I’m interested in finding out: Did somebody who’s supposed to know something not know it and not do it, and are they liable for that?” Mayor Jeff Coleman said. “The citizens of Pflugerville are fixing to pay for something way sooner than they should have.”
The cost of the repairs will come out of the city’s utility reserve and won’t result in increased water rates, Word said. A “Band-aid” solution is in place, Word told the council, so the pump station can continue to operate until the 21-foot-long, 2-feet-wide pipes are replaced this summer.
The pump station receives water from an intake in Lake Pflugerville and sends about 4.5 millions of gallons of water per day to the city’s water treatment plant. About 14,000 water customers are served by the city, Word said.
On May 1, city staff members found the pump station surrounded by a moat of water when they turned up for a routine inspection.
Three underground pipes had developed holes, some the size of a pinhead and others nearly two inches wide, Word said.
Clamps were quickly placed on one pipe, and more to fix another pipe were on their way as ofWednesday afternoon. Each pipe has a capacity of 7.2 million gallons per day.
It appears there were small holes in the industrial coating applied to the pipes, which exposed the steel pipes to air and led to rusting, Word said. The problem likely wouldn’t have occurred if a concrete encasement had been placed around the pipes, Word said, a practice that has been standard for years.
City Manager BrandonWade told council members that if they wanted to research who is responsible for the faulty pipes, Pflugerville might have to hire consultants to sift through documents.