The crew at the Knox City Water Department has been working hard to repair leaks and other water issues since the temperatures rose above freezing. They found a rather large leak Tuesday morning.
Water Superintendent Todd Gardner said the crews turned on the water at Wythogan Park and heard a large vibration which is indicative of a water leak. Gardner said it wasn’t visible and the leak may account for a large portion of the city’s discrepancy in water use.
“The guys went out and started looking and found that we had a leak under State Road 35, known as Heaton Street, and it was the line that fed the depot,” explained Gardner. “We isolated it and turned it off and had a company come and directional bore a new line underneath 35 and we got it hooked up. We were probably losing in the neighborhood of 50,000 gallons a day down there. None of it was surfacing. It was catching a tile underneath the road and going through drainage down into the river. It’s something you’re not going to see. We just got lucky and happened to run across it.”
Gardner isn’t sure what caused the leak, but the freezing and thawing action could have played a part in the cause. They did not take out and inspect the old line to investigate it further as it could cause problems with the new line.
“We just know it broke under the road. We replaced it. It was a one-inch service line and it has a lot of water availability because it’s coming off a 12-inch main. It was leaking within about 20 feet of the 12-inch main.”
Gardner said the repairs cost about $1,000.
