Lawrence city utility crews have spent part of the holiday season repairing water main breaks, but officials say the number of leaks is no more than usual for this time of year.
"As things get colder and the water gets colder, you see things break a little more often," said Mike Lawless, assistant director of operations for the city's utilities department. He said the extended drought has also contributed to problems because the dry soil pulls away from the pipes, giving them more room to vibrate and break.
A pipe break in the 600 block of Walnut in north Lawrence early Wednesday affected service for 11 customers in that area. Lawless said crews expected to have that leak fixed by late afternoon. It was the fourth water main break in the city since Christmas Eve, Lawless said.
On Christmas Day, a water main break on W. 21st Street between Mitchell Street and Naismith Drive brought out crews who had to close that part of the street to make repairs. Lawless said the repairs were completed around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Two other water main breaks were reported on Monday, he said.
The city of Topeka was reporting a rash of water main breaks on Wednesday, with five teams of repair crews as well as contract crews working at various locations to fix leaks. The city was reporting on its Twitter page that the frozen ground was causing pipes to shift and break.
Topeka spokeswoman Suzie Gilbert said there had been 40 water main breaks in that city since Sunday, including 13 that had occurred by mid-afternoon Wednesday.
Comments
foodboy 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Maybe the city should think about fixing our crumbing infrastructure instead of building the Taj Mah rec-center.
Frankie8 5 months, 3 weeks ago
The bus service is not under-utilized. Right now the KU buses aren't full because the students are away on winter break. The T has plenty of passengers, however if you see a bus near the end of its route it stands to reason it is going to have fewer passengers. I see more and more people on the bus, first time riders trying to learn the system to get to work on time. The KU bus with a ramp that makes it so easy to get on and off with a wheelchair, or if you just can't walk very well, is a godsend. A lot of people depend on the bus. Long time riders get to know each other and the drivers and at times there are some nice conversations.
The library is essential for those who love to read but cannot afford to buy books. It keeps people well informed about current affairs in foreign governments though the new non-fictions books about those areas. Besides books, music and movies, there are many programs that have something for every age group and interest. The people who work there are so nice to deal with, I think they deserve a shout out.
LogicMan 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Fares covering only 8% or so of the operating costs, as compared to successful municipal transit systems that cover at least 50%?
It's not unterutilized; it's welfare.
Cant_have_it_both_ways 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Thank you very much Frankie for supporting an entitlement service by taking money away from people who work for it and give it to many who don't. If you and your buddies really needed to get somewhere you should call one of your friends. Please don't demand that others pay for your transportation under the banner of helping others . You help other people by paying your own way and not taking dollars from people you don't know. I know you are a good person from reading your posts and generally mean well. We wonder why the city does not grow, attract business and other things when our sales tax rate is one of the highest in the state. People get here and see a battlion of vagrents on our streets. No wonder people don't go down town. I know I go there very seldom because of this. Moms with small children generally don't go there at all. The 4 million a year empT is one of the things that attract them. Burt Nash, new shelter, new library mostly for 150 new computers meant for accrediation upgrades under the banner of providing them for the poor. The list continues.
Cappy 5 months, 3 weeks ago
You most certainly must not go downtown as every time I go there there are lots of people.
Smarmy_Schoolmarm 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Cant_have_it_both_ways: If you don't go downtown, how do you know other people aren't there? Unless it's very hot or very cold there are plenty of people there, even moms with small children believe it or not.
As to the sort of people who use the T; my mother used it for the last few months before she died. She took it three times a week to the dialysis clinic at LMH. She was a tax payer and she also paid a fare to ride each way. She never minded paying for things she didn't use, such as school taxes after we kids were grown, and she didn't make it to the library much after she stopped driving. She understood that we all have to take care of each other to make this thing we call Life, work.
Catalano 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Wow. Merry effing Christmas to you, too. I pay taxes, which I think in your universe means paying my own way. But if I don't own a car and use the bus, that's taking from others? I agree our sales tax rate is high. Talk to your Governor or the State Chamber of Commerce about that. And God forbid you or your loved ones would ever need mental health care. But, being perfect in a perfect world, you'll be just fine. Oh, and thanks for staying away from downtown...those of us who patronize it appreciate that.
Cant_have_it_both_ways 5 months, 3 weeks ago
I'm ramping up to write my income tax check... I am sick of all these people who think the world owes them something just because they were born, or demand more from the system than they put in. I gave a lot of money to charities last year, money that I earned by either hard or smart work. I do not like it at all that we pay people to watch tv and talk on free cell phones. You should not either. Imagine how much more there would be if people were required to at least pay part of their own way.
Smarmy_Schoolmarm 5 months, 3 weeks ago
You can stop being Ebeneezer Scrooge any time. Christmas is past.
Cant_have_it_both_ways 5 months, 3 weeks ago
So I would guess you would agree that everyone can do something...Like fat people can do customer service work on phone banks just as well as sitting in front of their tv's watching Opra?
We could round up all the people drawing unemployment and put them to work fixing up the train station for a whole lot less than 5 million or whatever it is. We could also require them to move the books from the current library to the temp one and back while the new one is being built at a huge savings to the taxpayer... heck we are paying them anyway?
Any ideas?
Smarmy_Schoolmarm 5 months, 3 weeks ago
I have heaps of them...unfortunately I'm not the decider. Neither are you.
Cant_have_it_both_ways 5 months, 3 weeks ago
You might then consider becoming part of the solution. Enough of all this waste of tax money on moochers.
Smarmy_Schoolmarm 5 months, 3 weeks ago
See there's the difference between the two of us. I don't see it all as a waste of tax money and I don't see all people who use public services or entitlement programs as moochers.
Bailey Perkins 5 months, 3 weeks ago
If you can name a city that has actually spent time and efforts to repair crumbling infrastructures, then you'd have a greater likelihood of this happening. Since such a concept is non-existent to most city officials..I wouldn't expect much.
Lathrup 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Having spent most of my working life outdoors in very cold and very hot weather, I really feel for the crews doing the work. If there is anything colder than being down in a trench, wet, with 10F to 20F temps and a good crosswind, I haven't heard about it. My hat's off to the men in the hole.
swampyankee 5 months, 3 weeks ago
i find it to be more pleasant in a trench out of the wind and the ground is warmer below grade
mikekt 5 months, 3 weeks ago
More than likely, the problem is the temperature of the water in the pipes and the pipe joints themselves where different sections of pipe are joined to each other..
Both pipe and water contract in size until they reach 39 degrees. At 39 degrees, the pipe continues to contact but the water actually begins to expand in the space that it's volume occupies, causing pressure surges that probably flow from coldest spots in a piping system to the warmer spots in a piping system or towards volume/pressure storing sites such as water towers
To address that problem, many utilities try to control the waters temperature by mixing well water, at the underground's warmer temperature, with colder surface waters from rivers & lakes.
I would guess that water taken now from rivers & lakes is colder than normal, because of their decreased levels of heat retaining water in them ?
The other problem would be Leadite, which is a sulfur based joint cement, that was used as a replacement for the older pre 1920s style Hot Poured Melted Lead Sealed Pipe Joints, before modern rubber sealed joints were invented in 50s to 60s era..
No utility was forced to move with the times, engineering wise, so changing technologies probably moved from place to place, as utility companies accepted new methods, so it makes calling these events more difficult unless you have access to see the break in person and examine the factors that contributed. Dead Pipes Don't Tell Lies.
Lawrence, like many US Cities, is a collection of engineering trends that happened over many years, who's consequence we're not always immediately visible to be observed & understood.
Leadite does not expand and contract at the same rate as does the cast iron pipes, so stress is created by temperature changes at the pipe joints. As I understand it, Leadite is also not the best electrical conductor, causing stray currents to jump from pipe section, to pipe section, thru the surrounding ground, which causes electrolytic damages to the pipes at the joint ends.
cc1951 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Try 32 degrees.
mikekt 5 months, 3 weeks ago
It freezes into ice at 32 deg & does expand at that point by something like 2/3rd its' volume but it actually begins to expand rather suddenly at 39 degrees & can create rather significant shock waves by doing so in closed plumbing systems. When water cools, etc, in a distribution system to 39 degrees, it creates a known water industry problem, that is well documented, which has to do with the water actually expanding the space that it requires in a liquid state of existence. Guess they never told you ?
Joshua Montgomery 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Best wishes to all of the hard working utility workers who are out punching holes in the frozen ground on Christmas day.
I've seen how hard these guys work to keep your water flowing safely. We should all take a moment to think about how much cold, thankless, dangerous work it takes to make our tap water flow.
Thanks guys.
Thinking_Out_Loud 5 months, 3 weeks ago
I am not very smart or knowledgable on these matters. I am not particularly erudite. Rather, then, than commenting on the issues raised in earlier posts, allow me merely to express my appreciation for those crews who responded to ensure the rest of us had water available during our holiday.
Thank you all, ladies and gentlemen--we understand that you had to take time from your own families, and we thank them, too. We have noticed your sacrifices this holiday season. We wish you all its blessings and we hope for you the happiest of New Years.
bearded_gnome 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Mikekt, thanks for a very informative post.
mikekt 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Check out an EPA May 2002 Whitepaper entitled Deteriorating Buried Infrastructure Management Challenges and Stratagies. That's how bad things were getting 10 years ago & we are 10 years further down the road on various thrown together engineering that has a more or less came with varied expiration dates on them.
People were building cast iron water mains before we understood metallurgy which came into its' own around WW2 .
Humans also love our engineering cycles......over build the first one because you don't know what you're building and then build it faster-cheaper, until it falls apart as soon as it is put in use.
There are 50s built water mains, that will be shot 40yrs before ones built 40yrs before the 50s models were built, in the early 1900s. No joke !
mikekt 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Oh, the bottom of page 12 of this report mentions the 39 degree phenomena of water starting to expand as pipes continue to contract
bearded_gnome 5 months, 3 weeks ago
And thank you gentlemen for keeping the water flowing on tis holiday season in a very cold time.
bearded_gnome 5 months, 3 weeks ago
I agree that our city's priorities are sure messed up!. we've had a couple of articles indicating that replacing old water mains is far behind what it should be.
yet: we want to put city money into restoring the train depot [yes I know most would be grants but some would be city $s]; we wanna build a very expensive wizbang rec center/KU athletic zone thingy; we wanna build a new waste water treatment plant to support our supposed expected growth [when we cannot reliably supply water to our current residents]; we fund the annual salary for a city sustainability officer; we expand/remodel the library [which it did need] and put in a $75K worth shiney thingy that doesn't fascilitate the library's mission; etc.
yeah, that's messed up priorities.
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