Water Woes Are Solved

Many households and businesses in Monticello had to deal with low water pressure issues for nearly two weeks recently, and the Water Department was stymied trying to locate the problem for the seemingly erratic water outages.

City of Monticello Water Superintendent Waymon Cody explained what happened, after he figured it out last Thursday.

It all started on June 13 when a water main was hit while excavating at the new convenience store being built on Forsyth Street, behind The Monticello News office. The main was an old main that was not mapped, so it could not be helped. That break resulted in many having low water pressure for a time, however it was fixed in two and a half hours. Everything seemed fine, said Mr. Cody.

Then, the next day, the city started getting calls of residents complaining of low water pressure. The calls came from different areas, from the Courthouse to Dexter Axle, and all in between, at different times of the day. Mr. Cody and his crew checked all the mains, and there was water on each main. He said some days there would be no calls, and some days there were several calls. Meanwhile, the water department workers are riding the lines looking for a leak, traipsing through underbrush, looking for water. As dry as it was, Mr. Cody said they were sure they would see water.

After nearly a week of chasing the problem, Mr. Cody got with the engineers, and they put transducers on the lines to create a graph to give them a lead as to where the problem was. He said the line at Permatherm had good pressure, so he moved that transducer to an area near the Square. As they studied the results, he said, they saw they had full pressure at the Bank of Monticello on East Greene Street, but low pressure at McMichael’s just up the street.

By now, they have figured out that it’s probably a valve problem. So, Mr. Cody got out his metal detector as valves are metal and went to work between the bank and the next block and a half. Just in front of the Courthouse, they located the problem last Friday. It was a broken valve.

Mr. Cody explained what happened. The valve apparently had been broken for some time. However, the water pressure forced the valve up so although it was broken, it was open because of the water pressure. When the main broke, it lowered the pressure, and the valve closed. It could not reopen as it was broken. Because the system is looped, the pressure would drop but not go away completely.

So early Monday morning, city workers joined a contractor who began tearing up the asphalt. The valve was located and out of the ground by 9 a.m., and the new valve was on by 10 a.m. Service was back up by 11 a.m. Since that time Mr. Cody said he has only received one phone call about pressure, and that was an issue at the business’s meter. He is happy, happy now that the problem is fixed.

Mr. Cody said that parts are hard to get, but when he first realized several years ago that parts for the old system may be hard to find, he stocked up. Therefore, he had a replacement valve and the replacement pipe needed to complete the job.

Mr. Cody said he had worked with water systems for 22 years, and he had never seen anything like this before. He thanked the public for their patience, especially the plant manager at Dexter Axle, which was affected several times.

Mr. Cody also reported the reservoir is in good shape in spite of the hot temperatures and lack of rain recently.