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Official: Water main breaks have many causes

Schaeffer: Soft water is not a cause

Water mains seem to be breaking on an almost weekly basis in Fort Dodge, and city officials may never know precisely what caused a given pipe to fail.

There is “no definitive answer as to why these things are happening,” according to Chad Schaeffer, the city’s chief development officer. Infrastructure and engineering are among his responsibilities.

In remarks to the City Council Monday, he ruled out the possibility that the water with reduced hardness now produced at the John W. Pray Water Plant has anything to do with the problem.

“The soft water the plant is producing is not the reason we’re having water main breaks,” he said.

Schaeffer said there is a need to focus on updating the city’s water distribution system.

“As we move into strategic planning in April and May, that has to be a component of the conversation,” he said.

The City Council had a workshop discussion on water mains Monday in the midst of a winter in which there has been a large number of water main breaks, including one that produced a tall geyser of water along Kenyon Road.

The council took no action on water main issues Monday.

The city has 173 miles of water mains. The average age of those mains is 67 years. The oldest one, installed in 1916, is beneath a section of South 20th Street.

Many of the city’s water mains are made of cast iron. Others are made of ductile iron and a few are made of PVC.

Since April 2021, there have been 68 water main breaks.

According to Schaeffer, there are three potential causes for water main breaks: pressure variances, geotechnical factors, and pipe deterioration.

The freezing of the soil, which is among what engineers call geotechnical factors, is the No. 1 cause of water main breaks, according to Schaeffer. When soil freezes it shrinks or contracts, creating space in which a pipe can shift and break.

Schaeffer said there have been a number of very cold days this winter, with not a lot of snow on the ground. Snow, he said, acts as insulation that helps to prevent the soil beneath it from freezing. Without that insulation, the soil has been freezing to a depth of about six feet below the surface, he said.

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