Sunday afternoon a water main on Jerusalem Church Road burst, making the second big leak in the area in the last month.
According to Larry Coleman, Director of Utilities for the Pickens County Water and Sewer Authority, water lines in the Jerusalem area are in dire need of replacing, but the county simply doesn’t have the money to make the necessary repairs.
“Those pipes were some of the first laid in the county, and that’s a high-pressure area. They put the wrong kind of pipe in when they laid it, too,” Coleman said.
According to the utility director, Jerusalem area lines, installed in 1995, are a Class 200 pipe, which is not sturdy enough to handle the pressure coming through the lines.
“We are going to look at replacing the high-pressure areas out there when the funding becomes avaliable,” Coleman said. He noted Tate area lines are much older, dating from the 1970’s. But Coleman said water flowing through Tate lines flows at a much lower pressure.
“We would like to replace Tate and Jerusalem, but we need to get to those high-pressure areas first,” he said.
Following the most recent Sunday-afternoon rupture, nearly 100 Jerusalem area residents were out of water for a time.
According to Coleman, a water main on Jerusalem Church Road near the Henderson Mountain Road intersection burst at approximately 5 p.m. Sunday, resulting in a loss of nearly 600,000 gallons of water.
“That was a high-pressure, six-inch line. When water leaves one of those, it leaves in a hurry,” he said. “Of course, we didn’t like it, but it’s going to happen when you work in water.”
Coleman said water line breaks are not uncommon.
“We lost a little more than last time,” Coleman said, referring to the previous break on Jerusalem Church Road near the Murphy Bottoms area.
According to Coleman, utilities department employees were able to quickly locate and isolate the problem.
“We have some guys who live in that area. That break couldn’t have been found or repaired any faster than it was,” Coleman said.
Coleman estimates that Jerusalem residents were out of water for approximately two hours, “but most of them had a little trickle,” he said.
Please contact your water service provider if you experience a sudden loss in water pressure.
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