\u201cIt\u2019s been running like this for months,\u201d Bolden said as we waded from her home on Park Row down Atlanta Street to Al Lipscomb Way, just across from the baseball fields at Billy Earl Dade Middle School. The water stretched all the way to the historic marker planted on South Boulevard. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy!\u201d<\/p>\n
Water was bubbling up through the concrete. I said it looked and sounded like a natural spring. Bolden laughed, but not because she thought it was funny. \u201cYeah,\u201d she said, \u201cit\u2019s kind of soothing, just a little bit.\u201d If only sarcasm could plug a busted water line.<\/p>\n
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Which, I guess, is what this is about \u2014 a broken pipe burbling drinking water all over South Dallas streets for months. About why it took so long to get it fixed. About the cold shoulder residents say they got from City Hall. About the damage wrought just out of sight by this brutal, endless summer. About a broke and seemingly broken city. And about how everyone I talk to can no longer contain their anger about ANY OF IT.<\/p>\n
They finally patched the leak Wednesday night, after South Dallas council member Adam Bazaldua and I asked about it. But repairing (gesticulating wildly) all of this seems very far off.<\/p>\n
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When I told Jeanette Bolden the water-line leak on Al Lipscomb Way looked like a natural spring, she laughed. But not because she thought any of this was funny.<\/p>\n
Robert Wilonsky\/Staff writer<\/p>\n
Bolden and residents in and around the South Boulevard-Park Row Historic District have been complaining about their water-logged, algae-slicked, bug-ridden streets and trash-clogged storm drains for more than three months, they said, begging City Hall to make it stop. They sent service requests to 311; called, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach time my 311 cases were closed, I immediately opened another case again,\u201d Bolden said. \u201cA prime example of what my neighbor said: \u2018Don\u2019t complain anymore.\u2019\u201d In other words: You\u2019re wasting your time.<\/p>\n
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Bolden finally emailed the city manager\u2019s office last week: \u201cWe are highly upset to see such a waste of running water with trash and green messy stuff down the City street. Please help!\u201d That email was forwarded to someone in the Transportation and Public Works Department, where someone forwarded it to Dallas Water Utilities, who said they\u2019d already heard about this from Bazaldua\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Bazaldua told me Thursday morning he knew nothing about the leak until he was texted photos on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the first our office had been told about it, and we reached out to DWU,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why it was running that long, but when I found out about it, it was fixed within 24 hours. It was not brought to my attention, which is frustrating, because I would have gotten on it much sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Water and trash ran all the way from Al Lipscomb Way to South Boulevard, about a quarter of a mile from the leak.<\/p>\n
Robert Wilonsky\/Staff writer<\/p>\n
Bolden, by the way, already has a foot inside City Hall, as a member of the Landmark Commission\u2019s South Boulevard-Park Row Task Force. She\u2019s spent years raging against the city for the \u201cselective enforcement\u201d that takes place in her neighborhood, where historic homes fall down and, just last week, burn up while the city shrugs. Pity the rookie who\u2019s never had to navigate these waters.<\/p>\n
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\u201cLast time I called, they told me there was no need to keep calling,\u201d said Charlotte Savage, who lives in the duplex where the street sprung a leak. Savage was already hot about the state of Lipscomb, which has two school-zone signs but not a single flashing light nor a crossing guard each morning to help kids walking to Dade, including her grandson. She said she\u2019s been calling the Dallas ISD and Dallas police about it for two years, to no avail.<\/p>\n
Then the street started to bubble in May, when Savage, like Bolden, said she started letting the city know Al Lipscomb had sprung a pretty big leak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said, \u2018We know there\u2019s a problem, it doesn\u2019t affect your water bill, quit calling,\u2019\u201d Savage told Bolden and me Wednesday morning. \u201cI\u2019m so tired of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s awful,\u201d Bolden said after she\u2019d introduced herself to the neighbor she\u2019d never before met. \u201cYou don\u2019t ever tell a citizen if there\u2019s a problem not to call. But they just expect South Dallas to lay down and take it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Jeanette Bolden said a Dallas Water Utilities worker had come by to mark the leak on Al Lipscomb Way, which had been obvious to residents for months.<\/p>\n
Robert Wilonsky\/Staff writer<\/p>\n
When I recounted all of this Wednesday to Sarah Standifer, the director of Dallas Water Utilities, she was mortified.<\/p>\n
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\u201cEvery call that we receive is expected to be addressed professionally, honestly and with a sense of urgency,\u201d she said, \u201cwhere we can explain what we\u2019re going to do, how we\u2019re going to do it and when we can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s get to that last part first.<\/p>\n
Standifer said DWU records about the leak on Lipscomb don\u2019t appear until July 1, at which point a crew went to look at the spot \u2014 just look. Ten more service requests followed. And each time, Standifer said, a supervisor was dispatched \u2014 \u201cto see if the condition had changed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
An Aug. 17 visit revealed that the leak had gotten worse. So \u201cit was raised in the priority database,\u201d Standifer said. But nothing was done until Wednesday, when, Standifer said, \u201csupervisors went out and said it has changed and needs to be addressed.\u201d A crew was dispatched a little after 4:30 Wednesday afternoon. Savage texted photos as they pulled up to fix what Standifer said was likely a neighborhood line.<\/p>\n
Standifer said this summer has especially been brutal on the city\u2019s water system: More than 700 million gallons a day, she said, are being pushed through the pipes \u2014 higher than usual. And \u201cwhen you\u2019re running that much water through the system,\u201d she said, \u201cyou see an increase in main leaks and service or neighborhood leaks.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Jeanette Bolden spent Wednesday giving me a tour of the algae-streaked creek\u00a0that ran all the way from Al Lipscomb Way down Atlanta Street all the way to the historical marker on South Boulevard.<\/p>\n
Robert Wilonsky\/Staff writer<\/p>\n
The mains are the bigger pipes pushing water to the smaller neighborhood lines. And in just June and July alone, Standifer said, there have been 128 main breaks and 310 neighborhood line leaks \u2014 in addition to 139 fire hydrants that needed servicing. DWU \u2014 an enterprise fund with its own budget separate from the general fund \u2014 employs 18 crews to deal with all of that, with main leaks and breaks as the priority, since they push the most amount of water.\u00a0<\/p>\n