A water main in Two Rivers burst over the weekend, and crews are working on figuring out why.
We spoke with City Manager Greg Buckley who explained that alarms sounded at the water plant indicating high flow, and the level of the elevated storage tanks started dropping.
“It turned out we had a major main break in the area of Seagull Marina where it erupted up through the parking lot a little bit behind McDonald’s,” he revealed.
Crews were able to quickly isolate the issue and shut off that water main without causing any issues with any customers.
The big question mark around the entire issue comes from the fact that it is a relatively new water main.
Buckley noted that the pipe is “an HDPE (High-density polyethylene) plastic main that was pulled beneath the harbor from Coastguard Park over to the area of Seagull Marina just five or six years ago when Harbor Park was rebuilt.”
Buckley tells Seehafer News that they had issues with the same line of pipes three years ago as the pipes separated on the Coast Guard Park end.
“It erupted under an intersection over there,” he noted. “In that instance, it turned out to be a coupling where the pipe had pulled away. We will see if that is what happened again at this end.”
He also explained that with these types of pipes, when they are pulled over a long distance, “They ultimately contract over time and pull out of the coupling.”
Regardless of what the issue turns out to be, Buckley said “That is going to be an expensive repair.”
