Infrastructure is showing its age
Two water main breaks in San Diego add urgency to city upgrade plan
A water main that ruptured Sunday, spewing untold gallons of water into downtown San Diego, is part of an antiquated system of pipes long overdue for replacement.
The underground pipe — which created a large sinkhole at 11th Avenue and A Street — is 76 years old and made of cast iron, city officials said Monday. A second pipe that also burst Sunday, flooding northbound Interstate 5, was made of reinforced concrete.
Following a string of ruptures in recent years, the city has been steadily replacing its cast-iron water pipes, some of which are more than 100 years old, with more durable tubes made of polyvinyl chloride, better known as PVC.
The city has replaced roughly 180 miles of pipeline since 2013.
“We’ll continue to do our best to switch out the oldest pipes, the cast-iron pipes that we know fail with regularity,” said Mayor Todd Gloria at a media event Monday where construction crews worked on the broken pipe.
The city has roughly 55 miles of cast-iron pipeline remaining, and officials estimate the last sections will be upgraded by 2025.
The city experienced 33 water main breaks in 2020, down from a high of 131 in 2010. The city has averaged nearly 80 major ruptures a year over the last decade.
Those incidents include a pipe that broke near Idaho Street and Polk Avenue in 2018, flooding homes and businesses in North Park, as well as a series of ruptures in Mission Valley the previous year that opened a sinkhole on I-5, leaving hundreds of motorists stranded.
Gloria said he supports investing in aging pipes but also has concerns about adding to the already high cost of water in San Diego. The city is bracing for water rates to climb sharply as it continues to build out its wastewater recycling program, known as Pure Water.
“This stuff is not free,” he said Monday. “It’s always a balancing act. I worry a lot about what it takes to live in this city.”
The water main broke around 3:30 p.m. Sunday, flooding the streets and at least one nearby business. The city turned off the water around 6:45 p.m. to prevent further damage.
Many residents lost running water in their homes, including Andrew Hoffman, who lives on Cortez Hill.
“I’m on a group text with my neighbors, and all of a sudden, everybody’s like, ‘I lost water,’ ” said the 59year-old.
The city gave out bottled water and posted water wagons in the area.
“It’s an issue of, ‘Is the infrastructure keeping up?’ I don’t know who’s in charge, but it’s pretty evident it’s not,” said Hoffman while filling up a plastic jug near the construction site Monday.
Running water was restored to most downtown homes and businesses around 7 p.m., according to the city. It’s not clear how many people were affected.
Shortly after the city turned off water to the ruptured pipe downtown, the second water main burst near state Route 163 and I-5.
That break did not affect water customers, officials said, but northbound lanes of I-5 downtown were flooded.