My daughter Louise and her family were under a boil water advisory in Topeka from Tuesday through Thursday because of a broken pipe at its water treatment plant.
“It’s scary how we take clean water for granted!” she texted me.
The PVC pipe cracked due to the bitter cold that gripped the state for much of last week into this. The pipe pumped chlorine gas to help rid the water of contaminants. Routine monitoring detected a drop in the safe water standards mandated by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
After efforts to adjust the chemical levels failed to register a difference, crews began to inspect the plant’s vast network of pipes.
A city employee found the problem — a cracked pipe atop the edge of the roof of a building at the water treatment plant, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
Though the pipe was repaired in a timely fashion, the boil advisory remained until Thursday afternoon.
It takes a while to flush the city’s 60-million-gallon system, authorities said.
No doubt.
In his role as Humboldt Administrator, Cole Herder has been advising residents to keep their faucets dripping to avoid frozen pipes.
According to the US Geological Survey, a slow drip — 30 drips a minute — equals 3 gallons a day. A one-gallon bucket equals 15,140 drips.
According to my research on the internet, an Austin, Texas plumber recommended a “walking pace” drip, which would be more like 60 drips a minute, or almost 6 gallons a day.
The dripping keeps the water moving down the pipe, making it less susceptible to freezing and possibly expanding and breaking the pipe.
Corey Schinstock, Iola assistant administrator, said he’s not eager for when the ground thaws and crews find out how many water and gas lines have burst from the sub-zero cold we’ve been experiencing.
Schinstock said the city lays roughly 1,500 to 2,500 feet of lines every year in its ongoing effort to replace the old lead pipes with the safer and more durable polypipe.
On Thursday evening, I texted Schinstock and Iola Administrator Matt Rehder asking how many miles of water lines the city has running under our streets.
