By Jill Sperling

City crews cleaning up after multiple water main breaks last week

Feb 11, 2019 | 3:57 PM

KAMLOOPS — City crews are in the clean-up phase after multiple water main breaks last Thursday. 

The city’s Utility Services Manager Greg Wightman says the leaks on Greenstone Drive and near the FrontCounter BC Building were repaired over the weekend and water was restored to affected residents and businesses. 

Work was slow, due to the weekend’s cold temperatures.

“The frost was really hampering our efforts this weekend. We saw frost about three feet down. Even just digging through that it’s like digging through concrete,” Wightman said. 

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“So, we were wearing through our teeth that we have on backhoes for example, having to replace those and just trying to get through that frost to even have a look at where the leaks were coming from. And then when the water is coming out of the mains it runs up to that frost and then runs beneath that so it pops up quite a ways down the street, a ways away from where the leak actually is, and you end up having to chase it all the way up the street to try and find where the breaks are.” 

The leaks were fixed by 4:30 p.m. Sunday. 

Now that the work is complete, the city will begin to look at how much roadwork will need to be done in the affected areas. 

“It’s quite likely with all the undermining of the roads that once things do start to thaw a little bit we’ll start to see some depressions in the roadway,” Wightman said, “so, we’ll have to re-assess what needs to be done at that point, whether it’s a major reconstruction or just kind of patchwork.”