Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti demanded Pennsylvania American Water move the aging, more-than-140-year-old water mains in the downtown to the top of their replacement schedule following two breaks within the past two weeks.
During a press event at City Hall on Tuesday to address the recent infrastructure issues and efforts to pursue economic relief for businesses and residents, Cognetti also praised the crews working to repair the mains while pressuring PAWC’s corporate leadership.
“It has been so disruptive and so difficult for folks downtown — residents, businesses, visitors,” Cognetti said. “We need to understand when the full replacement of these water mains from 1885 will be done. We need to continue to push PAWC to reprioritize their list, reprioritize whatever funding is necessary — working with their leadership at the state level and their corporate leadership across the country — to make sure the Downtown Scranton water mains are fully replaced as quickly as possible. It’s very clear that those projects need to vault all the way to the top.”
Cognetti noted city residents and businesses will receive intake forms — which we be send out starting Wednesday — to help the state Department of Community & Economic Development, the city, and others understand the scope of the their losses.
“It’s so important to stem the losses for our downtown businesses and, if we can, get some relief for residents if they had to purchase a hotel room because they needed to have water,” she said.
Cognetti added PAWC has a personal and property damage link on customers’ MyWater account where they can submit personal and property damage, however there is no guarantee they will receive any relief.
“There were clear in their communication that this type of loss is not something that is generally covered,” she said.
During an interview following the press event, Scranton Fire Chief John Judge said while battling fires becomes a bit more stressful when water main breaks occur, other departments offer assistance to keep people safe and keep operations running smoothly.
Judge noted there are contingency plans where mutual aid partners from outside the city that have tankers are automatically dispatched.
“Our chiefs would know this is in an area that’s affected, strike an alarm box assignment, and bring those volunteers in to help us,” he said. “We’ve had that (happen) over the years. It’s typically something we deal with in the wintertime, but this (last main break) was impacting a large swath of the downtown in a high value area with large buildings. With some of our hydrants not that far outside that area, we’d be able to get the water supply there fairly quickly and our agents are carrying water. Our anxiety level goes up a little bit, but we definitely make sure we dial in on it.”