Minneapolis crews working to prevent repeat of St. Louis Park water main crisis
MINNEAPOLIS -- What does it take to make normal happen?
CBS News Minnesota is digging in - literally - to get answers about aging infrastructure and what's being done to prevent the next water main crisis like the two breaks that flooded dozens of homes in St. Louis Park.
"A water main break is the worst case for cities and engineers and homeowners," Michelle Stockness, a civil engineering consultant, explained to WCCO. "No one wants that. Just like the plumbing in your house and bad things happen, nobody wants that."
The City of Saint Louis Park declined several requests for follow-up interviews and tours with their public works staff. The City of Minneapolis, however, was eager to have us shadow its teams change out a 91-year-old fire hydrant and watch as technicians cleaned and lined existing pipes.
"It's not magic that gets water to your house," Stockness quipped. "It's piping systems and a bunch of crews that work every day to make sure the treatment is going well, and safe water is getting to your house 24/7."
Annika Bankston, Director of Water Treatment & Distribution Services in Minneapolis, said there are more than 100 people tasked with overseeing the city's water main system, which serves more than 400,000 people.
"We understand when pipes were put in, we understand where they're at, we understand how they operate," Bankston told WCCO. "It just emphasizes the importance of the work we do with how we assess and evaluate the condition of our pipes and our system."
To help mitigate leaks, crews during the summer months test all 8,000 of the city's fire hydrants; this year that testing led to the city replacing about 250 of them.
According to Stockness, who consults with dozens of municipalities, added that advancements in metering and other technologies help crews get accurate readings of flow levels.
"We can do condition assessments, we can dig potholes, we can do ultrasonic techniques to gauge the condition of the soil," she said, but cautioned that Mother Nature still can throw a curveball. "The ground freezes and thaws and it moves the ground a little bit depending on the weather, and that puts pressure on the pipes. if we had X-Ray vision our jobs would be a lot easier. If it wasn't buried eight feet underground and wouldn't freeze and thaw it would be a lot easier."
