City of Palouse temporarily lost water Wednesday afternoon and evening
Service outage on Wednesday has been restored
The city of Palouse was temporarily out of water Wednesday afternoon.
Mayor Tim Sievers said the outage lasted from around noon to midnight until services were fully restored.
Crews from the city’s public works department were repairing a service line on I Street that had been causing trouble for nearby residents, Sievers said. They hit a water main between Alder and Church streets while digging around the site, he added, which caused the broken 8-inch pipe to spew water.
Workers were unable to isolate the area, Sievers said, and in order to cut off water to the ruptured line, all water supply needed to be turned off. This included all wells and pumps in town.
Sievers said it took around five hours for the water pressure to reduce enough to drain the affected area. Crews were able to replace the pipe and repressurize the system later that night.
Workers learned the broken piece had been corroded, which Siever said likely caused low water pressure to nearby residences. He added there was so much buildup that water was traveling through a channel the size of a pea.
He said unfortunately this isn’t an unusual finding in infrastructure around town. Many pipes are a “hodgepodge” of metals, Sievers said, that can corrode while reacting with each other and water over time.
The city was built out in stages, he said, and different materials were used while expanding the water system. Sievers added that much of the town’s infrastructure is decades old, some that hasn’t been touched since it was first installed.
He said while some would prefer the city’s system be replaced all at once, though the project would be a costly one. He added just a few years ago it cost almost $800,000 to upgrade a mile of pipe in town.
“For a community our size,” Sievers said, “we don’t have that kind of money to do a total infrastructure overhaul.”
Crews will continue to do repairs in steps, he said, and address issues as they arise.
Pearce can be reached at epearce@dnews.com
