Age plagues city water lines
Alexis Barker
NLJ Reporter
“Newcastle as a whole is really starting to show its age,” according to City Engineer Mike Moore.
Several water lines throughout Newcastle, six in the past two months, have experienced breaks, with several being caused by the age of the infrastructure lying under city streets. While all the breaks aren’t attributed to age, three are, Moore said.
The most recent breaks occurred last week in the Gray addition area near Oak Street and South Summit.
“These two breaks were near one another in the same proximity. Both were breaks in 6-inch transite water lines, also known as asbestos-cement lines. These breaks occurred for no apparent reason,” Moore said. “More or less, we are attributing the breaks to the condition of the lines.”
The water lines, according to Moore, were put in sometime in the 1950s and are nearing 60-plus years old.
A break that occurred in front of Hansen Equipment on Main Street was caused by old water lines wearing out and breaking, Moore said. A break that occurred at the same time as the Hansen break occurred on Sixth Avenue, but Moore said that break was due to operational error and had nothing to do with the age of the pipes.
Other line breaks occurred on Morrisey Road, blamed on a workmanship issue, and on Second Avenue, attributed to a frozen line.
Engineers, according to Moore, hope to get at least 50 years out of water lines and the lines in Newcastle have met and surpassed that age by at least 10 years.
“In our case, we are asking those lines to last longer than the design life. They can provide extra time, but time catches up with these lines eventually,” Moore said. “What we are seeing is lines start to, specifically the asbestos-cement (transite lines), begin to wear out,” Moore said. “This material was popular in the 1950s before PVC became more dependable. These lines egg out and become brittle by nature and start to crack.”
Moore said that pipes are cracking before coming apart in worn-out areas.
“This is a tough conundrum for the city because we have this type of pipe throughout town,” Moore said. “They are difficult to go in and replace, but the city tries to do what we can.”
In previous years, Moore said, the city has paired water line replacement with road repairs.
“We have that mindset that anytime we do street work that we will also address the water line before replacing the street so we don’t have to go back in,” Moore said.
But financially, Moore said, replacing streets and water lines is quite costly and the city cannot afford to do them all at once.
“We are using city crews to fix the breaks, so we are only paying for the material costs to repair the line. It costs a few $100 in material costs,” Moore said. “To go in and replace the line, not only do you have the cost of the line but the repair of the street. So we are talking anywhere from $10,000 to a few $100,000, depending on the scope of the project.”
The city can apply for grants and loans through the state to repair the water lines, and Moore said that the city recently applied for a mineral royalty grant to repair the water line under Boyd Avenue, as well as the road.
“We are getting the money to fund that line. We consider that to be one of our priorities because it is in a commercial area and supplies both the hospital and the new hotel. We would like to see that line replaced before it fails,” Moore said.
Money to fix these lines likely comes with rate increases for city residents to help cover the cost of the projects, Moore said.
“There is no way to do it all at once. There is just so much in town,” Moore said. “We are very cost prohibited to even tackle one whole neighborhood in town. We try to prioritize our projects and include the streets if we do fix the water line.”
Moore said he hopes to develop a plan to start tackling water line issues so “we don’t get too far behind.”
“I need to go in and inventory the lines that we have and start implementing a replacement program to go in and replace these older lines,” Moore said. “No line will last forever, though.”