Crescent City Public Works and Tidewater Contracting crews responded to a water main break on Elk Valley Road at about 6 a.m. last Wednesday and had drinking water restored to about 3,000 customers in the Bertsch-Oceanview area by approximately 5 p.m. the next day. | Photo by Amanda Dockter
A defect in a 20-year-old C900 PVC pipe may have caused the water main break that left taps dry for about 3,000 customers in the Bertsch-Oceanview area last week.
City Manager Eric Wier was notified of the big leak on Elk Valley Road at about 6 a.m. last Wednesday. He thought it was going to be a run-of-the-mill leak, but found that the break lifted the pavement and destroyed the sidewalk.
The water main was about 8 feet underground, below the city’s storm drain system, Wier told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday. Crews with Crescent City Public Works and Tidewater Contracting had to replace 20-feet of pipe, he said.
“This pipe is under a lot of pressure and given the defect, it split the pipe longitudinally for about 18 feet,” Wier told Redwood Voice. “That’s what created that massive leak where it basically drained that whole Bertsch-Oceanview system out. We could not keep up.”
He said there appeared to be a significant dent in the pipe itself that may have led to the break due to the water pressure in that part of the system. Crescent City does regular inspections of its sewer and storm drain systems using a camera, but that’s not the case with the water system since it has to remain in a potable state.
Breaks can increase as the pipes start to age, Wier said, which is why Crescent City sets aside about $125,000 annually to replace old mains. However, the city primarily focuses on its cast iron water mains that are more than 50 to 60 years old, Wier said.
On Monday, Wier told the Crescent City Council that the water main break turned into a major project. He credited Wade Mayes, who was just promoted to public works maintenance manager, and Public Works Director Dave Yeager as well as staff in the city’s lab and their electrical maintenance operations technician.
“They were out until midnight that night to take the water samples,” Wier said. “Our lab director [Gina Carpenter] came in at midnight to set up those samples so those samples could be read in 16 hours, which made it by 4 o’clock that next afternoon so Director Yeager to run out before 5 o’clock, before everybody was headed home, and change that sign to say they didn’t have to boil water anymore, so they actually could cook with their water.”
Once the water main was repaired, crews had to re-pressurize the system and flush the system out using almost every hydrant in the Bertsch-Oceanview system, Wier said. Staff also took about seven water samples, brought it to the lab for testing and coordinated with the State Division of Drinking Water, which concurred with the city’s results that it was safe.
Crescent City had also set up a potable water distribution system at the Fred Endert Municipal Pool to provide water to those who were impacted by the water main break.
Crescent City used that same water system in 2023 during the Smith River Complex wildfires for those whose wells weren’t functioning due to the countywide power outage, Wier said.“At that time we didn’t know how long this was going to take,” he said of the repairs to the water line. “It ended up going just about as good as it possibly could have gone.”
