Cost to fix break to top 250,000
A portion of Marshall Street remains closed about a month after the break.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Although the bills haven't arrived, Youngstown water officials estimate the costs of fixing one of the city's main waterlines at 250,000 to 300,000.
The city lost about 50 million gallons of water because of the Jan. 24 break to the line on the lower West Side, said Water Commissioner John Casciano. The cost for that water is about 50,000, he said.
The city buys about 16 million to 18 million gallons of water a day from the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District. About 5 million to 10 million gallons of water a day comes through the 36-inch pipe that broke on Marshall Street. That line is one of the city's two largest connecting it to the MVSD.
About 50 million gallons were lost because the city and the MVSD couldn't shut off all the valves leading to and from that pipe. The city hired Hydra-Stop of Alsip, Ill., to install a large plug to stop the water.
But adjustments needed to be made to the plug, and water from the pipe didn't stop until Jan. 29, five days after the break, said Eugene Leson Jr., the water department's chief engineer.
Additional costs
The city also had to special order a 90-degree elbow joint to replace the one that separated from the pipe causing the leak, Leson said. It took two days for the elbow joint to arrive. The old elbow joint was installed in the 1950s or 1960s. Though a city crew was working on Marshall Street when the line broke, Leson said the elbow joint just fell off and the nearby crew didn't cause the problem.
Marucci & amp; Gaffney Excavating Inc. of Youngstown made the needed repairs, including installing the elbow joint and filling in the large hole on Marshall Street. That work wasn't finished until Feb. 3.
The bills for the plug, the elbow joint and from Marucci & amp; Gaffney haven't arrived.
Also, the city needs to make street repairs.
West Avenue between Marshall Street and Mahoning Avenue will be closed for quite some time because the waterline break caused extensive damage to the small street's pavement.
Marshall between Hogue Street and West Avenue waiting for concrete poured over the hole, about 25-by-25-feet wide and 10 feet deep, to dry. The cold weather means the poured concrete won't dry quickly, and asphalt can't be placed over the concrete because of the weather, Leson said.
"Once we get bills for all the work, we'll know the cost," he said.
Estimate
But the department is estimating the bills to be between 200,000 and 250,000, with the cost of the lost water at 50,000, Casciano and Leson said.
The line provides water to the lower West Side, the lower South Side and downtown. A drop in water pressure continued for days because of the break. But the city rerouted the water to an adjacent 30-inch pipe a few days after the break.
The city has filed claims with its insurance company for the pipe, plug and road repairs, Casciano said.