08/05/2007: "Water Main Springs Leak On Spring Street"

ig_TFH_8-4-07WaterMainBreak-01 (100k image)
(Town Crew works to repair water main on Spring Street)

Why it always on a weekend? A horizontal split in one of the 10” water mains under Spring Street in Friday Harbor has been repaired by town crews. Early Saturday morning before the stores and business had opened, evidence of a possible problem (”please don’t let be the water main!”) surfaced on Spring Street, but when town crews dug down to find the source of the leak, they released the break was elsewhere, and the surface water was only evidence of what may be a major problem.

More holes were dug, backfilled, and new ones dug, until they located the leak near a shut-off valve in front of the Coldwell Banker building. Once the pipe was exposed, Mike Deegan -the man in the hole- quickly located a long split in the pipe, and set in motion the repair plan,

Mike had a number of sidewalk supervisors helping him out with insightful comments and suggestions. There was one woman who observed the pipe spraying water, watched for a bit, and then turned to her friend and informed her “They are still working on it”. When Mike pointed out the remains of the old original wood water pipe to us, we suggested that perhaps all repair work should be stopped until an archeological study was completed. This suggestion was not taken, but it got a smile from one of observing tourists.

Problem identified, the crew picked a new pipe from their ready supplies, cut out the old, and after a few hard hours the town was back in businesses by the end of the day; just in time for all of the restaurants and bars to once again have running water. One immediate result of having running water was the sound of flushing toilets up and down the south side of Spring Street.