A November water line break that left residents and businesses reporting low to no water pressure for a couple of days while crews tried to repair an unexpectedly complicated piece of pipe, has lead to a list of changes the city needs to make in order to upgrade water delivery as Taylor grows.
“It’s a unique line, kind of an antiquated or archaic line where the material now is hard to come by,” City Manager Brian LaBorde originally reported to Taylor City Council regarding the challenges encountered. “It’s pretty much obsolete and so are the practices to repair such lines, and it’s hard to find contractors with that specialty.”
Getting the line fixed was neither simple nor inexpensive.
“We had to use every resource available because this is an important line that could have shut down the entire city,” said Jim Gray, public works director.
Engineer Chris Malinowski addresses City Council regarding the November water main break. Photo courtesy of the city of Taylor
The city hired HDR, Inc, to oversee the repairs. Chris Malinowski, a senior program manager and operations liaison with the company was the engineer in charge of the project. He is listed as a licensed water operator.
At council’s Dec. 7 meeting, Malinowski reported that the repairs came in at approximately $326,000, somewhat less than the initial estimate of $354,000.
He described the incident as being caused by a boring machine installing fiber optics that broke through the side of an 18-inch pipe creating a 3-inch hole.
“That pipe is an odd size. It was not expected to be that kind of pipe at that location,” Malinowski said. “Because of the odd size there were no repair clamps available. [The city utility crew] cobbled together two smaller repair clamps and got the leak 90% stopped by midafternoon.”
He explained that once the temporary fix was made, the hunt was on for someone to do a permanent fix.
“If you can imagine an 18-inch steel pipe lined on the inside and outside with concrete. So, the traditional valves and clamps just wont work on there,” he said.
The company found a welder with the proper experience and after two days of round-theclock crews on site, the hole was repaired.
Based on the number of challenges the pipe repair caused, Malinowski worked with LaBorde and Gray to develop a list of recommendations for overhauling and upgrading the city’s water delivery system. The new recommendations will be presented to the council for approval at a later date, but Malinowski outlined the suggestions at the Dec. 7 meeting.
The suggestions cover four main issues.
The first recommendation was that any contractor working in a right of way that has a pipe of 12-inches or larger must expose the pipe so that the city can inspect it for damages.
The second suggestion is to update the main water line near H-E-B, with a valve or meter. This is the main water line for the city and it is scheduled to be inspected for damage soon.
“We’re looking at possibly putting in a water meter so we could more accurately get a reading on what amount of water is coming from (Brazos River Authority) to the city. Also, looking at maybe a check valve so flow does not go back north towards the BRA plant to the other customers. I have a strong suspicion that was happening, especially during the freeze of 2021,” Malinowski said.
The third recommendation will be for an overall valve and pipe inspection program.
“We were looking at possibly having the city hire a contractor to go out and test all these valves and repair the ones that are broken but due to what happened with the main break I think we want to look more at the skeleton, the backbone of the water system and kind of work our way outwards from there,” the engineer said.
The final recommendation addressed the improvements in technology that are available now, which were not in place when much of the water pipe system was installed. It is now possible to precisely pinpoint the location of pipelines, rather than just having a reference drawing for a line’s position.
“The maps were put together in the past. Generally, they’re good but we found a lot of inaccuracies during this event so we want to make sure the city knows not only that the valves work, but where the valves are, where the pipes are and how everything works together,” Malinowski said.
The contractor said he would work with LaBorde and Gray to bring the recommendations back to City Council for approval. The city has $4,359,191 in it’s Fiscal Year 2024 Capital Improvement Projects budget for water line replacement, relocation and upgrades.
Council adjourned to executive session to discuss the possibility of a lawsuit to cover the cost of the November water line repairs. No action on a lawsuit was taken at that time.
