Crisis Condition-
A community of
Steubenville,Ohio water plant
lost its ability to pump raw surface water from
river supply pump house
to city treatment plant/reservior. Reservior was emptied. Pump
house
and reservior were 2 miles apart, had incurred multiple pipeline
breaks,
no pressure in two pipelines
and no map of 80 year old lines. THIS EMERGENCY
WAS WITHOUT ANSWERS FOR THREE+ DAYS.
Bill Fabian Water Supervisor
contacted us.
Emergency required
us
to:
1) map the 2 mile
underground
pipelines; 2) locate pipeline breaks and 3) allow city repair crews
to
repair twin pipelines after 3 days without any raw process water supply
and no drinking water for 5 days.
City provided Blank
Maps
The city water
Superintenant Bill Fabian
provided us with city map from pump house to plant reservior.
We
mapped the two underground pipelines, marked the breaks on map and
flagged
pipeline site breaks.
The lines were 80 years old.
Water lines mapped
after
80 years
The two lines are side by
side out of pump house 18-20 ft deep. They are on top of each other
crossing
a four lane new interstate highway. They return to side by side on the
west side of highway
at 8-10 ft deep. They are along side a paved
residential road 250 feet. They are SW under a haul
road to pump
house. There was 50 and 100 ton rock trucks crossing over roads in
prior
2 years. Lines
continued adjacent to road, across ball fields and
parking
lot to treatment plant reservior.
Pipeline directions
and
7 breaks
After mapping underground
pipeline and the direction changes, we determined the underground
break
locations in pipelines. The first two breaks were in center of
highway.
The second locations
were multiple in both lines and west of
interstate,
adjacent to paved road used by 50 ton and 100 ton
rock trucks.
This
haul road was moved 100 yards. The third to seventh locations were
under
the temporary
unpaved haul road. The water started shooting out
of
the ground at two breaks after one break was found.
The City could not
locate all breaks and had inadequate pressure in lines to pump water.
Maps, 7 breaks and
repairs
confirm our technology
The water supervisor Bill
Fabian
excavated
all the break locations mapped, identified, confirm each,
replaced and
welded the pipelines in place and the two lines work without leak for
three
years.