w/ photo by Melissa Nech
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This massive water main break on K-4 in Hoisington resulted in a boil water advisory issued Monday afternoon by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. While the main was repaired and pressure restored, the advisory was expected to be in effect by Thursday morning at the latest.
Hoisington city crews start week with water woes
KDHE issues boil water advisory for Hoisington residents
By MIKE GILMORE
mgilmore@GBTribune.com
HOISINGTON — A Kansas Department of Health and Environment-issued boil water advisory proved to be only a part of Hoisington’s troubles as the city water department wrestled with two separate water main breaks earlier this week.
City water staff was summoned Monday to the site of a water main leak observed late Sunday in a section of 8-inch main line scheduled to be replaced in the city’s upcoming K-4 repair and replace water line project, Mitchell noted. “On Sunday, it didn’t seem to be terrible, so we came back on Monday,” Mitchell said. After exposing the line, however, “we saw some rust on top of the pipe and then suddenly, it just, ‘psheeew,’ blew off. It was a whole 30-inch section of the line.”
Mitchell noted that three large water evacuation pumps, along with an engine from Hoisington’s fire department, were called to the scene to help evacuate the site, as well as equipment from neighboring Great Bend. “No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t divert the water from the hole quick enough to get staff in safely. We tried about 20 different valves to try and shut it down and were not successful,” he explained. “We couldn’t get in the hole because it was not stable.” After several hours, that line was repaired.
The incident was then reported to the KDHE following the pressure loss. The KDHE then issued a boil water advisory.
“We had just got that line fixed and pressure restored, and then we discovered another leak at 11th and Park north of Clara Barton Hospital, so our staff worked on that one until about 10-11 p.m. that night. While the site of the break was in front of a vacant house, a large tree caused complications. “The break was underneath the tree, so we tried to access it from three directions, but every time we’d cut roots, the tree would shift some more.” No residents’ water supply was noticeably impacted by the break, so crews returned to that site Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, Mitchell drove to Hays nearly Tuesday morning to pick up sample bottles for use in the KDHE’s required testing. Hoisington is divided into four quadrants for water testing purposes, and a sample from each quadrant was taken to the Salina certified testing facility. Timing of the event was fortunate, Mitchell noted. “If this had happened on a Friday, we’d have had to wait until Monday to start the testing process,” Mitchell said. “We were fortunate that we were able to get things turned around and to the lab so quickly.”
Hoisington Middle School basketball games against Ellinwood Monday evening were canceled due to the break and repair. The games will not be rescheduled.
The test samples arrived in Salina at about 9 a.m. Tuesday, Mitchell said. He was hopeful that the results would be good and that the advisory be rescinded by late Wednesday or early Thursday morning.
“What’s frustrating is that we awarded the bid months ago for this section of water line,” Mitchell said. “We knew that there weren’t adequate valves or shutoffs so we authorized that work quite some time ago. The latest they could possibly start is Dec. 31 and we’ve been pushing them. We have the (K-4) pre-construction meeting today (Tuesday) at 3 p.m. It’s like, if we could have started a little earlier, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
Following Great Bend’s water issue two weeks ago, the community of Russell was also issued an advisory, Mitchell said. “I was told by the guy in Hays that these kind of things seem to happen in threes. Hays was close to a main break but an advisory wasn’t issued. So, Hoisington is the third one and maybe there won’t be any more for a while.”
