The discovery that several miles of water lines in the city of Lawrence were improperly installed is a disappointing development for city residents, who already face a flood of increased taxes and fees.

In developing a long-term solution to the water line issue, the City Commission must work to minimize the impact on residents, even if it means prioritizing and delaying lower priority water projects to keep costs down.

The water line problem was discovered after 22 water main breaks occurred throughout the city in a three-week period earlier this year. Those breaks cost about $200,000 in repairs and replacements, according to Director of Utilities Dave Wagner. It was in repairing those breaks that the city discovered a deeper problem. Most of the breaks were on lines that were installed in the 1990s and were supposed to last 100 years. Instead, they weren’t lasting 25.

That’s because the pipes weren’t properly wrapped or otherwise treated to protect from the aggressively corrosive soils in the Lawrence area, Wagner said. When some of the pipe came out of the ground for repairs, it was rusted and brittle, so fragile that one tap of a ball pein hammer was enough to puncture it, Wagner said.

Worse, there are 13 miles of pipe that were installed that way. “That 13 miles of pipe, it’s probably not going to last that long,” Wagner said.

There are two ways to address the unplanned water main failures, Wagner said. The first is to defer or scale down planned projects. The second is to increase water rates beyond current rate models.

The City Commission already has approved an 8 percent increase for water and sewer rates for next year. And in the past five years, average water costs are up $22 per month, or by about 30 percent. Add to that the 1.25 mill property tax city commissioners have approved for next year, not to mention tax increases by the Lawrence school district and Douglas County) and it’s easy to understand why Lawrence residents might be frustrated by yet another hike in taxes and fees.

Before the improperly installed lines were uncovered, the city’s capital improvement plan called for $16 million in water main replacements or relocations from 2019 to 2022. Working the replacement of the improperly installed lines into that budget — without introducing unplanned tax or rate increases — should be city commissioners’ commitment to the city’s residents.