Several water line breaks along Goeglein Gulch Road and Rim Drive cut water service to area residents on Thursday in east Durango. Crews anticipated having water service restored by the end of day, but an unrelated raw line break at the bottom of Goeglein could last through Independence Day weekend.
Tom Sluis, spokesman for the city, said a 30-inch raw water supply line at the bottom of Goeglein was damaged and crews are working to repair it.
Water is pumped through the line from the Animas River to the city’s Terminal Reservoir, a city news release says.
The water pump at the Santa Rita Water Reclamation Facility has been shut down, but the city will supplement its raw water supplies with water from its main source, the Florida River, for the next few days, he said.
He said the city is considering issuing an advisory to residents to refrain from irrigating for three to four days, but conditions Thursday and Friday will inform whether there is a need to do so.
Traffic headed toward Fort Lewis College or trying to reach North College Drive is being diverted up East Eighth Avenue, he said.
Some residents near Goeglein and Rim Drive awoke Thursday morning to find their sinks and faucets were dry. Sluis said several breakages occurred on 14-inch water lines supplying homes in the SkyRidge subdivision, the Skyline Apartments and Silver Peak condominiums, and the city turned off water to those areas to accommodate repairs.
Pressure was restored to some lines by 3:30 p.m. Thursday and the city anticipated water would flow again by the end of the workday, he said. But every time crews would fix one break, another would occur.
A news release issued by the city said the first breakages were reported Wednesday evening in Hillcrest Estates and the SkyRidge subdivision. Service was successfully restored in those areas the same night, but more breaks occurred Thursday morning near the Skyline Apartments and Silver Peaks and Ferringway condos.
As of 5:30 p.m., service had been restored to Silver Peaks and Skyline residents. It hadn’t been restored to the Ferringway condos, but was expected to be within several hours, the release said.
“If there are no new breaks, all residences will have water back tonight (Thursday),” said Allison Baker, public works director. “It’s a matter of chasing the breaks. When the crews flush a newly repaired line, new breaks can show up.”
The water lines are only about a decade old, so city crews don’t suspect aging infrastructure is the cause of the breakages, Sluis said. But because of a snow-filled winter and recent wet weather, the soil is shifting, and that could have moved the pipes.
The news release said residents affected by the water outage can use the Durango Recreation Center to shower and access water until regular water service is fully restored.
The city also parked water trucks with filling stations in the impacted areas for residents to utilize while they wait for water to return.
cburney@durangoherald.com
