The source of a massive water leak in the Billings heights has now been discovered.
It's a leak that has been losing one million gallons of water per day.
“There's an opening here and it was dirt in there,” said General manager Beau Anderson as he showed the broken pipe.
“This is extremely unusual. I've never seen a case like this," said Bo Andersson, County Water District of the Billings Heights (CWDBH) general manager.
Andersson talked about the leak and repairs at a board meeting on Wednesday.
It's a problem that the workers with the water district replaced and fixed within 48 hours on May 15.
”They do a great job,” Andersson said. “This is like somebody playing the 5th Mozart piano concerto. Everybody knows how to play the music. And they do. It's amazing.”
But the issue itself has been around much longer.
The leak in the eight inch AC service line became apparent in October.
“That's when we noticed the amount of water,” said Doug Kary, CWDBH board president. “Had zoomed. It went from nothing to boom."
The crew found the leak on Hawthorne Lane south of Wicks Lane, between North Ping Circle and South Ping Circle.
According to a CWDBH report, about 15 years ago, the city of Billings installed a storm drain pipe.
The city had asked to move the water main because it would cross with the storm drain pipe.
Rocky Mountain Leak Detection in Bozeman determined the sleeve fitting was not installed properly and that is what caused the leak,"
"There is an opening here and it was dirt in there,” said Anderssson. “So it allowed the water, it's about 85 PSI pressure allow the water to jet jet jet, and it created a vortex back here. So meaning that the water was just flowing around, but it was picking up a little sands and things, so it became very abrasive.”
Anderson said this leak started 15 years ago and pointed to other issues that he believes could have been prevented by paying more attention to detail.
“So the PVC pipe was connected to was not engaged properly,” Andersson said.
Andersson says a city contractor did the work.
The board had questions about the $350,000 in lost water:
- “The contractor, is he liable for this problem?"
- “Can we go back on the insurance to file a claim?”
- “Did our guys do their jobs and inspect it.”
While the mystery has been solved, the next steps remain uncertain.
“Hopefully we can come to some kind of conclusion on what route to take," Kary said.
More information on the leak is available in the board agenda for the May 21 meeting on pages 29-35 and 54-56.
