Cranbrook’s Public Works has been extremely busy in the last week dealing with an unexpected city-wide boil water notice and multiple water main breaks.
City staff say crews completed a long 26-hour shift on Wednesday and Thursday to complete some repair work at the Phillips Reservoir.
“The crew was rebuilding the chlorine manifold, which is a standard procedure we have to do every couple of years,” explained Tony Hetu, Public Works Director.
“We’re still investigating why we had a high chlorine followed by a low chlorine flow.”
Workers acted fast to get the contaminated water out of the City’s system.
“They made it to the first point of entry to the city and were able to disperse the water into the stormwater system,” said Hetu.
“Before too much of the over-chlorinated and unchlorinated water actually made it into the system, they were able to divert a majority of it.”
However, more work came for the team as cold temperatures led to an unusually high number of water main breaks across the community.
“Any time we have a major fluctuation of colder temperatures in the winter, the ground moves and creates water main breaks in various areas of the city,” said Hetu.
“It mostly happens with older infrastructure, but we can never really plan how many or how severe they’re going to be.”
City staff say Public Works already repaired four major water main breaks, with two more to go and the possibility of more to pop up throughout the week.
“The commitment, expertise and teamwork of our staff have kept our water system running despite all of these obstacles, and their tireless work is a testament to their professionalism,” says Mayor Wayne Price.
“This is the kind of dedication in our city staff that helps make our community strong.”
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