Water main break hits close to home in Port

PORT WASHINGTON - A water main break Friday afternoon occurred, ironically enough, at the Port Washington water plant.

It happened about 1 p.m. as contractors excavating an area just south of the existing plant were digging topsoil in preparation for foundation piers for an addition to the plant to be poured, Water Supt. Dan Fisher said.

The contractor avoided the water main, Fisher said, but removed enough dirt that the so-called thrust block — an anchor that holds the main in place — moved, causing the main to shift and break.

“Luckily, we were on site,” Fisher said, noting that within 15 minutes they had stopped the flow of water.

The break caused a loss in pressure, but because Port has a looped water system, no customers were affected, he said.

While too great a drop in pressure or a loss of too much water can result in the utility issuing a boil alert, Fisher said that wasn’t needed in this case.

“We weren’t anywhere near that,” he said.

By 10:30 p.m., the main was repaired, he said, noting it took that long because the water main was a 16-inch pipe, much larger than the 8-inch line that typically connects a house to the main.

The break caused a loss of about 100,000 gallons of water, he said.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a lot,” Fisher said.

This is the second time there’s been a water main break since work to refurbish the plant began in earnest this summer.

Fisher said that a contractor working for We Energies struck a 16-inch main on the north side of the plant while pulling conduit through a new line to the building about a month ago.

“They nicked the pipe,” he said, adding the break affected residents of the Lighthouse Condominiums across the street from the plant.

That break was repaired in less than a day, he said.