WINNIPEG – Residents along Laxdal Road are growing impatient with the persistent water main breaks in front of their homes.
“It’s going to break again,” said Pam Jobes, who lives on the road. “It’s a for sure thing, it’s just when.”
There have been 12 water main leaks on Laxdal since December 29th. At one point water was off for nearly a week.
“It’s not a way to live anywhere,” said Jobes.
The latest break happened early Sunday. Police were called in to help calm angry residents down when they confronted fire crews. There were no arrests.
The city pleaded with residents to have patience on Monday. The manager of engineering for Winnipeg’s Water and Waste department says he is just as frustrated.
“To have the number of failures that occurred in such close time frame is just unusual,” said Geoffrey Patton.
Patton said the city will fast track a plan to fix the corroded pipe this year. It will cost $500,000 to replace a 400 metre span.
“We’re in design phase for that water main right now,” explained Patton. “Work will start at the end of April or beginning of May.”
The construction is expected to take between four to six weeks and all homes affected will have a temporary water hook up.
There are 2,557 kilometres of water mains in Winnipeg. Around 12 kilometres can be replaced each year.
This year’s budget for the work is $16 million however Patton would like that bumped up to $18 million for 2015.
Patton said the pipes of biggest concern for failure were those installed between 1950 and 1970.
“We have around 250 kilometres of those which is about 10 per cent of our inventory in that area of concern,” Patton said.
He said the oldest watermain pipes are in the Exchange and date back to the late 1800’s. They are made from cast iron.
Comments