A water main ruptured Wednesday under the Enderby-Mabel Lake Road bridge, prompting officials to switch to a backup water source for 50 residents on the east side of the river.
Affected residents have been advised to boil their water for 3 minutes before consuming.
The pipe that burst was 50-years-old and was slated for replacement in the fall.
The funding for the project is already in place, but the work to replace the broken pipe will take place this spring, according to Tate Bengtson , the City of Enderby’s chief administrative officer.
Bengtson said the problem was detected Wednesday morning.
‘We just noticed some changes with the pressures within our distribution system,” he said. “What was happening was our system started to work overtime as the pressure started to drop because of the break. It was just simply a matter of pinpointing the location of it. And it was determined as we isolated our valves that it is was happening with our crossing under the river.”
Bengtson said debris from the spring runoff damages the underwater pipe.
He said stakeholders will be consulted before the pipe is replaced.