Rooting out leak source

Columbia Falls water department might wait until spring to fix underground pipe

Columbia Falls water department workers found a million-gallon-a-day water leak and shut it down Wednesday morning.

Phone calls from several people living along and near 12th Avenue West helped them isolate the gusher that had been saturating the ground probably since Saturday.

Water and Sewer Superintendent Gary Root said he figures it was along 12th Avenue West between 12th Street and 13th Street, just to the east of Teakettle Vista Phase 1.

When they got to that point, Root and his crew closed two valves at both ends of a section of 41-year-old cast-iron pipe and stopped the flow. Nobody lost water service, he said.

Cast-iron pipes, Root added, can last about 100 years if all goes right.

In Columbia Falls, apparently, it didn't.

Water workers had noticed that a couple of water wells were working overtime to refill the holding tank. Typically at this time of year, it's 36 hours from the time the tank is filled until a well needs to start pumping again.

But charts monitoring tank levels and refills snagged Root's attention when it took only a third to half that time.

"One well would come on and run for 18 hours, and the tank lost 2 feet," he said. "Then another well came on and both were working, and it took another 18 hours to fill up."

Several people within a couple blocks of the area heard water rushing through the metal pipes, and called the city. Like the column of air a musician blows through a trombone's tubes, Root said, "that sound echoes a long way."

A leak-locating technician from Kalispell will try to pinpoint the leak today or Friday. When the exact spot is known, Root said, "we'll think about fixing it. We might wait until spring."

It's a sure thing that the digging won't start anytime in the coming days. After all, it's Christmas, and nobody wants to work on Christmas.

"Also, the top two feet of ground are frozen, it's hard on equipment (to dig), it's hard on people. Since nobody's out of service, it can wait," he said.

"The longer we put it off, the drier it will become and the easier it will be to fix," he said. "We've got to dig it up and find out the exact problem. It could be a split or a shear - who knows?"

Cost of the fix won't be known until later.