Repairs made to 12-inch main
Workers dig a hole in an attempt to find a watermain break in Capac Monday afternoon. The break caused the village to lose water pressure and a boil water alert was issued. Ther repairs were completed about 12 hours after the incident occurred.
CAPAC — A boil water alert was issued Monday, following a break in one of the Village’s 12-inch mains.
Village Manager Travis Youatt, who also oversees the DPW, said he was notified around 9 a.m. Monday that there was a large amount of water and a possible broken water line on Kempf St., west of Main Street.
Youatt said a private contractor was working at a residence on the north side of Kempf St. when they struck the water line with a small excavator machine.
“It sounds like maybe they hooked the connection of the service line and the main and damaged the main,” Youatt said as workers struggled to keep water from filling a large hole that had been made while trying to find the source of the leak.
“We’ve got good people here working on it. The fire department came in with a large pump, plus we had several other smaller submersible pumps to draw the water out,” Youatt stated.
The village manager said several state and county agencies were automatically notified of the break. Officials with Michigan Rural Water Association were the ones responsible for issuing the boil water alert and did so, late Monday morning.
Youatt said the alert is automatically a 48-hour warning for everyone who is on the village water system to boil water for drinking.
“We are just being cautious out of an abundance of safety concern for our users,” youatt explained. “Bacterial contamination may have occurred in the water system and we obviously didn’t want anyone to get sick.”
The St. Clair County Health Department was among those made aware of the break.
Youatt said several hundred thousand gallons of water were lost as a result of the break.
According to the village manager, when the break was first reported the village water tower was drained of more than 250,000 gallons as a result of the break. Water pressure was reduced to half capacity in fire hydrants throughout town, Youatt said.
Mussey Township fire department had access to several back-up sources of water, should it have been needed for a fire call.
Youatt said repairs were completed around 8:30 p.m.
