Pipe bursts inside water plant, prompting emergency conservation order

The basement of New Rockford’s municipal water plant was full of water at 2:45 am on Tuesday, when water plant manager Rick Swenson came on the scene due to an alarm.

He carefully climbed a flight of stairs to assess the situation, then shut off a valve inside the plant. With water continuing to pour out, he turned off a shut-off valve outside the plant, under the sidewalk.

When even that wasn’t enough to curb the flow, workers headed to another valve near the Johnson property north of the water plant. Then they began to assess what caused the break.

An emergency water conservation order was put into effect by 7 a.m., as residents woke up and went to work.

Electricians, plumbers, engineers and city public works employees spent the entire day at the aging plant. There were not only broken pipes, but also shorted out electrical and telecommunications infrastructure that needed repair. Treated water wasn’t flowing from the plant until after 4 p.m.

“We figure we lost about 335,000 gallons of water,” Public Works Superintendent Bruce Hirchert said Tuesday afternoon.

A pipe inside the plant had been leaking the day before, Hirchert noted. Some repairs were made during the day Monday, only to have the break happen in the middle of the night just hours later.

Meanwhile, the water tower supplied water to the entire town all day Tuesday. The emergency water conservation order remained in effect for more than 24 hours, until 8 a.m. the next morning. Public works staff members took two hour shifts monitoring the plant as enough water was treated to restore the clear well and refill the water tower.

Planned upgrades to the aging plant are still months away. The reverse osmosis treatment equipment is not expected to arrive until the end of October, and the new treatment system will not likely go online until spring.

“We’re trying to get as much work done as we can as we get pieces and parts,” Rodney Mau of Sentry Crane told the Transcript Tuesday. The company ordered doors for the plant’s new addition in July, and they aren’t expected to arrive until sometime this week. Once the doors are installed, interior electrical work for the equipment will be completed.

The city commission meets Monday, Oct. 4, and there’s sure to be conversation about this incident and the work ahead for the water plant.