Chris Landry [email protected]
St. Martinville – The City of St. Martinville’s Public Works Department repaired a broken 8-inch water line on Thursday that had led to nearly 400,000 gallons of water a day being lost from the city’s water system and had caused the city’s lone functioning water well to run more than 20 hours per day to keep up with the water flow.
St. Martinville Mayor Jason Willis commended the Public Works Department for its work in a post to Facebook on Thursday, noting the work had taken eight hours.
“For the past two weeks, our team worked tirelessly to locate this hidden leak that was causing low water pressure across several areas of town,” Willis said in the post. “Today, their determination paid off.”
St. Martinville water system manager Jonathan Vining had reported the leak at the Consolidated Water District No. 4 meeting on Tuesday, saying the well typically runs 13 to 14 hours a day in the summer, but it was running 20 to 21 hours daily because of the leak, which was losing 360,000 gallons a day, he said.
Efforts had been made to isolate sections of the system to find the leak but had not been successful. But a suggestion by Consolidated Water District board member Kirk Lasseigne helped the city find the leak, and the repair work was done.
The broken pipe was found behind St. Martinville Senior High School and the St. Martin STEAM Magnet Academy, in a wooded area near the bayou.
Leak
Crews used an excavator to dig up the ground covering the water line, then removed the broken section and replaced it with a new PVC section, connecting the ends.
