Dayton sees third large water disruption in last year and half; boil advisory underway

Those living in areas near the break experienced low pressure and were under a precautionary boil advisory until further notice, city officials said during a Monday evening press conference.

Water pressure was expected to be restored to all of the city Monday night, Mayor Nan Whaley said at the evening press conference, and a map of those included on the boil advisory is below.

This was the city’s third large water disruption in the last year and a half, which frustrated some residents and business owners, some of whom closed their doors because of a lack of clean water.

City Manager Shelley Dickstein said at 2:05 p.m. water staff first noticed the break. By 2:15 p.m. crews started to find the break and at 2:30 p.m. crews started to reconfigure the Miami water plant to boost production to keep the lower system from depressurizing. The Miami plant provides redundancy to the Ottaway plant, the city manager said.

The break primarily affected the low pressure system, but at 3:20 p.m. crews noticed the high pressure system was affected and reservoirs were starting to empty, which Dickstein said indicated a very large break.

“We worked very quickly, very steadfastly, to get out there and correct this as quickly as possible to minimize the disruption this has for our residents, for our customers,” Dickstein said.

Samples are being collected to determine whether there is any bacteria in the system following the break, which can cause illness.

Miami Valley Hospital likely will have to take corrective action because its water pressure fell below 20 psi, Dickstein said.

“It is terribly inconvenient,” she said. “That’s why we work so hard to address it quickly, because the last thing we want to do is create problems for our businesses.”

Dickstein said the city won’t know the cause of the break until the underground pipes can be excavated.

Anyone who had no water coming out of faucets or experienced gurgles as gas escaped when the faucet was turned on needs to boil water until the advisory is lifted because both are signs of depressurization, Dickstein said.

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Residents should always boil their water as a precaution following water outages or low pressure, officials said. Mike Powell, director of water department. said crews will have to isolate the problem and then will excavate to make repairs.

The impacted area has a 30-inch, a 36-inch and a 48-inch pipe, and one or two of the pipes broke, officials said.

Clean water is extremely important during the current coronavirus pandemic for hand washing and sanitation.

Public Health - Dayton & Montgomery County advised restaurants, bars and grocery stores without water service to close until service is restored.

>> PHOTOS: Major water main break reported in Dayton

The water main break caused Dayton firefighters to seek mutual aid and tanker trucks to help fight a fire on the 14th floor of the Biltmore Towers senior citizens apartment complex on Monday afternoon. Firefighters said low pressure necessitated the plea for tankers to bring additional water to the scene.

North Keowee Street between Valley and East First streets was closed as crews work to repair the break.

Public Health closed all its facilities for the day as a result of the break. The agency will give an update Tuesday morning about whether it will reopen.

Dayton resident Teri Schoch saw the flooded streets in person on Monday.

“It looked like a massive break,” she said. “You could have paddled a boat through it.”

Schoch said the water pressure at her home in the Grafton Hill area was very low Monday afternoon, but it was not too much of an inconvenience.

However, she said, water disruptions are a safety issue, especially for low-income and vulnerable residents, such as the elderly. They may not have an easy time accessing clean water when they lose service at home, for mobility or economic reasons.

Dayton’s water infrastructure is old and expensive to repair, and people often take things like water pipes for granted because they underground and no one sees it, Schoch said.

“The lesson in there for all of us is that if you are going to have stuff, you’ve got to maintain it,” she said.

A February 2019 water main break occurred in the middle of the Great Miami River near the Keowee Street Bridge, which a construction crew was working on at the time. After hours of searching for the break in various parts of the city, crews determined it was along the river.

In all, about 150 million gallons of drinking water spilled into the river, the city said. A countywide boil advisory affected 400,000 people for more than 40 hours. Schools and businesses closed as well.

The city spent more than $860,000 to repair the break.

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Officials took several steps, including modifying their emergency response plan. They also also added additional valves to parts of the water system so it can isolate areas more quickly after a break, Powell said.

Dayton has more than 2,000 miles of water, sewer and storm water lines, and some those pipes were put in place in the late 1800s. Given the age of the infrastructure, Dayton have been working the past several years to replace or repair the pipes.

Dayton engineers have been working to detect water main breaks and other potential problems in the infrastructure before there’s an emergency, Aaron Zonin, the city’s deputy water director and water engineering manager told the newspaper earlier this year. The city’s efforts seem to be paying off, he said, as the number of water main breaks have trended down slightly the past several years.

There was 124 water main breaks in 2019, and Zonin expects that number to decline in the next few years because of the work officials have been doing on the infrastructure.

The city set a goal to make improvements to 1% of total water lines and 1% of total sewer lines annually. Since the program launched in 2013, it has met or exceeded that goal. In recent years, the city has spent $15 million annually on water infrastructure, and $9.5 million of that has gone toward repairing or replacing pipes.