Bridge work busts water main
Thousands affected when bridge work busts 20-inch water main
POTTSTOWN » Workers replacing the King Street bridge over the Manatawny Creek broke open a 20-inch water main that cut service to half the borough of Pottstown and parts of West Pottsgrove Township on Wednesday, March 17.
The break affected between 10,000 to 15,000 people, according to an alert issued by Montgomery County.
The water gushing from the broken pipe blasted a gorge out of the soil on the upstream side of the bridge, as it poured into the creek. Floating booms were set up in the creek to capture the sediment.
The loss of water pressure from Grosstown Road in the west; to Armand Hammer
Boulevard in the east; and from the Schuylkill River in the south; to roughly East Street in the north created the conditions that could allow for biological contamination to grow.
“Inadequately treated water may contain diseasecausing organisms. These organisms include bacteria, viruses, and parasites, which can cause symptoms such as nausea, cramps, diarrhea and associated headaches,” according to Montgomery County.
As a result, the borough has issued a boil water notice for water used for consumption and cooking.
Pottstown water customers outside the affected area may experience low water pressure, but do not need to boil their water, according to the borough notice.
“Bring all water to a rolling boil, let it boil for one minute, and cool before using, or use bottled water. Residents should use boiled or bottled water for drinking, making ice, washing dishes, brushing teeth, and food preparation until further notice, according to Montgomery County.
“The boil water advisory will remain in place until pressure is restored and two consecutive days of sampling are negative for total coliform bacteria and with compliant chorine residuals,” according to the county notice.
A “reverse 911 call” is planned to alert affected residents when the boil water notice is lifted, according to an alert posted by the borough on its website.
At the scene of the break, borough workers, joined by Public Works Director Doug Yerger, struggled to close the valve for the main in the middle of the intersection of King and Manatawny streets.
“If we can do this and isolate the break, we can go home tonight,” Yerger said during a break from wrenching. “If not, we have to close two valves at York Street and that means we’ll have to work all night because people in the block between York and Manatawny will have no water.”
At Pottstown Borough Authority meetings over the years, the need to annually “exercise the valves” has been discussed to ensure that they can be easily opened and closed in a situation such as this.
Because of the manhours involved, use of an outside firm to do that work has been discussed.
According to Borough Manager Justin Keller the effort was only partially successful which returned water pressure to most of those affected.
“Since we could only get it 85 percent contained, it looks likely that we will have to shut valves at York at the very least to make the ultimate repair. I do not yet have a timeline for when the ultimate repair of the main will happen and we might have to live with loosing 15 percent of the water due to the leak for the next couple days until work for the final repair can happen,” he wrote Wednesday evening in a reply to a Mercury query
“With over an inch of rain predicted for tomorrow we are going to try to get as much done tonight as we can. It will be a long one,” Keller said.
“We presently have a tanker truck at Goodwill Fire Company in the event there isn’t enough pressure during a fire emergency,” Keller wrote
“We will also be receiving a tanker truck of potable water and a truck load of bottled water. If we have to shut down King Street to York, the potable water will be prioritized on that block first,” according to Keller.
Yerger said the 20-inch water main crosses Manatawny Creek as part of the King Street bridge.
He said construction workers were in the process of putting in footers for a temporary bridge to carry the water line and other utilities over the creek while the old bridge is removed and a new one built.
He noted that a PECO natural gas line runs along the downstream side of the bridge and also must be held up temporarily so the old bridge can be taken down.