EL PASO, TEXAS (KFOX14/CBS4) — El Paso Water is moving forward with replacing the 36-inch water main that broke in January and left thousands of Northeast El Paso residents without water.
During Wednesday’s Public Service Board meeting, the utility said it will replace the pipeline system that failed in January with a new pipeline.
The break happened when one of its 36-inch mains failed and released millions of gallons of water into the area, draining 15 reservoirs and affecting over 100,000 residents. Following the rupture, El Paso Water said it has been conducting studies aimed at preventing a similar failure, as the utility said it has surveyed water lines in the area to identify sections that may need improvements.
Speaking to KFOX14/CBS4 on Wednesday, Gilbert Trejo, vice president of operations for El Paso Water, said the replacement work is being done under an emergency declaration approved by the board and that the replacement is already underway.
“A new pipeline will be installed along that segment of the system that broke, about 7,500 ft, a 36-inch pipeline that will replace the current pipeline that is there, the one that broke. We are moving forward with the replacement of that pipeline segment, as our visual inspection during valve installation showed the pipeline is in very poor condition. So we are replacing that; we are not waiting; we are doing it under an emergency declaration by the board, and we have a contract on board, so residents in the Northeast may see activity,” Trejo said.
In addition to the pipeline replacement, Trejo said El Paso Water is installing new digital meters across the city to help the utility more quickly identify which areas are affected when a main break happens.
“What we showed the board was the capabilities of the new digital meters that are being installed all over the city. These digital meters give us a visual of which meter doesn’t have any water, which would indicate there’s no pressure in the system. These near real-time maps are available to us so we can better identify areas of impact if there is a main break,” Trejo said.
The added capabilities come after El Paso Water acknowledged that January’s incident exposed vulnerabilities in the city’s 1950s-era system design, where a major water line was directly connected to multiple smaller distribution lines, limiting the utility’s ability to isolate the break.
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