WORTHINGTON -- A broken water main will probably not cause a geyser to well up in the yard or street, but all that water does slowly make its way to the surface or into structure drains, tiling or sump pumps.
Two city water mains have broken in the last week, one on Humiston Avenue and another at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Eighth Street.
"Most of the time, we get them in the winter months, when the frost gets into the ground," said Water Superintendent Eric Roos. "(It's) because of shifts underground."
The broken mains cost the city between $1,500 and $3,000 apiece to fix, depending on the severity of the break. Power lines or other utilities located on top of the pipe can also make mains more difficult to fix.
Broken mains aren't usually replaced unless they've broken several times. Instead, city workers put a permanent steel wraparound on the pipes to pinch off the leak.
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City pipes have about 100 years of life before they need to be replaced. Worthington spends nearly $500,000 a year on replacing aging water mains with new PVC plastic water mains. The old pipes were made of ductile iron and cast iron.
"We've been installing PVC for 30 years now, and I think the guys talked about repairing one leak on the PVC, and that's probably from a manufacturer defect more than anything," Roos said.
Two other water pipes have broken recently on private property, one about two weeks ago at Bank of the West and another this week on Miles Drive.
Neither of those breaks were the city's responsibility because they occurred on private property, past the curb of the street. In those instances, the owner can contact a licensed plumber to fix the break.
"We try to bury the mains six to seven feet deep, and that's typically underneath the frost layer," Roos said. "The frost is probably two to three feet deep now under the streets."
Snow can act as an insulating layer and prevent the frost from penetrating quite so far into the ground, in areas off the streets.
