'Drained Entire System': Handful Of Mishaps And One Bad Decision Led To Town Of Empire's Water Crisis
EMPIRE, Colo. (CBS4) -- The Town of Empire's water delivery system is now back normal after extensive testing determined there were no underground leaks in the town's pipes, as previously suspected.
Instead, service has been cut off to a handful of homes, Mayor Wendy Koch confirmed Friday.
"All detected leaks were on private property and in private residences," Mayor Koch stated in a letter to residents. "Once those residents complete repairs or return home, their water will be restored."
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Chief Of Police John Stein told CBS4 that several homes had accidental or unknown leaks. One home had a hot water heater malfunction while the residents were staying elsewhere, Stein said. Another, a rental property, had a toilet that "ran wide open" and lost between 7,000 and 10,000 gallons of water a day, Stein estimated.
At another residence, the homeowner's second home, investigators found a small, ice-over pond outside and heard water running inside. They discovered a one-inch line fractured inside the home. The house was heavily damaged by the flooding, Stein said. He guessed 30,000 to 40,000 gallons of water were lost each day here.
Yet another homeowner left multiple faucets "fully open" when they left in February, Stein said. Like many homeowners, this person was trying to prevent water pipes from freezing and being damaged during a cold spell by allowing water to move through the system. But, Stein said, a light drip accomplishes that task, and not a steady stream of outgoing water.
Those instances accounted for the majority of the water loss.
"Our system would've handled one of the incidents," Stein said, "but when you've got them together, it's an issue. It drained our entire water supply."
The town had 370,000 gallons in reserve, Stein said, plus another tank of untreated water.
Town officials noticed the system's emptying in mid-March, and asked residents to conserve water. A larger tanker truck provided drinkable water. But the town, and the state health department, declared a boil water advisory as the filtered supply depleted and the untreated tank was tapped.
Stein said town staff suspected a large leak in the town's system. A number of outside agencies, including Denver Water, helped conduct tests on the pipes.
No criminal charges are being considered against the homeowner who left the number of faucets running, Chief Stein added. But civil action from the residents, like those who were forced to stay in hotels and find other means of cooking meals and showering, is possible.
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Stein was thankful the water issue had been resolved by Friday morning when a wind-driven fire in a mobile home park threatened to ignite an entire hillside of dry grass and more residences.
Firefighters dumped 10,000 gallons of water on the fire in the first hour of the operation alone. That capability helped avert a large wildfire event, he said.
"Otherwise, this would've been totally 'insult added to injury,'" Stein quipped. "A little bit of luck, there, was on our side."
