SASKATOON – Water main breaks continue to wreak havoc on Saskatoon.
Twenty-three locations were without water on Thursday evening and there have been a total of 152 water main breaks since Jan. 31. Some residents can even expect to go as long as four to seven days without water service.
“February 28 at about 6 p.m. we were fully caught up there were no water main outages or water main breaks then the water main breaks started to roll in quite swiftly,” said Trent Schmidt, the acting director of public works for the City of Saskatoon.
“Since (then), we’ve been average about 5.5 water main breaks per day, our yearly average is 5.26 water main breaks per week.”
That’s seven times the normal rate of water main breaks. As a result, the 48 hour window for crews to restore water service once it is turned off in a neighbourhood is now four to seven days.
“There certainly is a sense of frustration when we’re looking at anywhere from four to seven days for a water main repair but for the most part citizens are understanding that this is a unprecedented year for in terms of the number of breaks that we’re experiencing,” said Ward 1 councillor Darren Hill.
“We simply don’t have the resources to repair them as quickly as we would like to.”
“The crews are working long hard hours, crews and our staff, contractors and our staff alike are starting to burnout and we really have to watch how many hours they’re putting in just for the safety of everyone,” Schmidt said.
“We really want to make sure we’re giving it our best effort but we’re not putting people’s safety at risk as well.”
A fifth water trailer that arrived last week came with it’s own set of problems.
“There were deficiencies with it when it was delivered to us. There was stuff that needed to be addressed before we could safely put it on the road and make sure it was a functional water trailer,” Schmidt said.
“Those have been address and we should be getting it back tomorrow at which point we will start the disinfection process over the week-end and hopefully have it ready it ready to go next week.”
Meanwhile, residents without an emergency water trailer in their neighbourhood have had five-gallon jugs of drinking water delivered to their homes at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, courtesy of the City, money that will have to come from the city’s water and sewer budget.
“We have opened up our leisure facilities, a combination of that and the water, is that enough? No, if you ask the citizens without water they would certainly say it’s not enough and I think we have to review this come the next budget cycle,” Hill said.
“If this is going to be the norm in terms of these cold temperatures and this number of breaks I think we need to ensure that we’ve got additional resources to ensure that the repairs do happen much more quickly than four to six days.”
At this point, city officials say they still don’t know when the number of water main breaks will decrease.
If you’ve experienced property damage as a result of a water main break you are asked to contact your insurance provider as soon as possible and a claim will be filed against the city.
Comments