A six-inch city water pipe that sprung a leak and gushed for more than 24 hours illustrates the pitfalls of an aging infrastructure, according to city staff and an affected resident.
The leaking pipe on John Telfer Drive near West Dunne Avenue was reported to the City of Morgan Hill’s public works crew about 4:30 p.m. Oct. 17, according to Public Works Director Karl Bjarke.
Bjarke said the pipe was a “cast iron water pipe.”
“This was an old pipe that developed a circumferential crack (cracked around the whole diameter of the pipe),” Bjarke said in an email to the Times. “Cast iron is a relatively brittle material that the city has not used for a very long time. This is a classic example of aging infrastructure.”
The crack was not a “full break” which could have caused extensive damage to the adjacent roadway and private properties, Bjarke added. He estimates the city and customers lost about 62,000 gallons of water due to the leak.
The leak sprung in front of the home of Steve Chappell, who said the pipe likely started leaking a few hours before it was reported.
City crews arrived the morning of Oct. 18 and repaired the leaky pipe by that afternoon. The repair consisted of a “full-circle repair clamp,” Bjarke explained. A “handful” of city water customers were without service for a short amount of time because of the leak.
The repair required digging up the pipe in front of Chappell’s home, who Bjarke thanked for his patience.
Chappell, who documented the leak and repair with frequent updates on the Facebook Morgan Hill Community Group page that he manages, said many of the homes in the west Morgan Hill neighborhood were built in the 1960s and 1970s. He figured the main water lines haven’t been replaced or upgraded since then.
Chappell also thinks the city lost significantly more water than Bjarke estimated from the Oct. 17 leak.
However, he praised the city crew’s work and sensitivity to his nearby property, including a tree and mailbox that were located on top of the leak.
“The City Water staff did a good job of removing some stuff while minimizing damage,” Chappell said. “Those guys really work hard and are great at what they do.”
The city’s aging infrastructure and the lack of funding to upgrade it wholesale has been a subject of frequent discussion among elected council members, appointed city staff and residents for several years.
The council tried to place a local tax measure on the Nov. 8 ballot this summer, which would fund what they characterized as badly needed infrastructure repairs and upgrades. However, the council declined to put the question up to the voters because survey results indicated it would fail.
