Damaged water infrastructure in Rochester is keeping crews busy as they wrap up repairs to a water main break from Wednesday.
The water main break at North St. and Portland Avenue is the third incident this month. The road reopened to drivers Friday afternoon.
“There’s various factors,” Justin Johnson, the city’s manager of water distribution, said. “It can include age of pipe but also movement in the ground, weather conditions, water hammer surges within the system itself.”
Repair lengths can vary depending on the severity of the break and whether there is other infrastructure around, such as underground utilities.
A simple fix may take an hour, but a severe break could take several hours. Laying new asphalt also adds to the time it could take to reopen an affected road.
“We want to show that we’re restoring the roads in accordance with all of our policies and standards,” Johnson said. “And ultimately, we want to make it safe for pedestrians.”
Johnson said the city’s technical, maintenance and engineering staff are always looking for ways to improve their service. The staff looks at the number of breaks within an area to determine how they move forward with repairs.
“We are actively looking at funding sources to mitigate a lot of our repairs and preventative maintenance measures,” Johnson said.
The post Crews wrap up repairs after third water main break this month appeared first on WHEC.com.
