Water main breaks in Berkley now bring total to over 20 for the winter

More water main breaks are popping up in Berkley.   

Monday morning, the city says they discovered their 19th of the winter, and that wasn't the last of it.

CBS News Detroit is getting answers from the public works team to find out why water main breaks seem to be such a frequent issue for their community every year.

As CBS News Detroit looked into the water main break on Tyler Avenue north of Oxford Road, crews discovered another just south of the intersection. They say they have to fix so many every year because of how old the pipes are to begin with.

"A lot of our water main is 100 years old, nearly 100 years old. We keep the rates as affordable as we can, but we're at a tipping point," said Deputy City Manager of Public Services Shawn Young.

Young says his crew is pretty efficient when it comes to fixing them, taking roughly six to eight hours in colder months and even avoiding any boil orders in most cases, but that's due to how frequent this issue is in the first place.

"They've been through it enough, and we've got a lot of newer staff, but they've picked it up really quick. When everyone is at home at 2 in the morning sleeping, they get up, come in, do what they got to do, and get everything ready for everyone in the community," he said.

CBS News Detroit asked Young what it's going to take to get water main replacements below double digits year after year.

"Really, the only thing that's going to change this is funding and water main replacements. Right now, with a 100-year-old main on the current track, it's going to take another 100 years to get through it, which it's not feasible, and we need to take a really good look at funding. Where could we fund it?

Young says those funds could come from federal, state, or local sources if there's action to allocate them, like what happened with lead service line replacement funds, but he says the hard truth is that any additional funding will likely fall on taxpayers.