WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – Since the end of May, the city of Watertown has seen three water main breaks.
The most recent one happened Monday night on Bugbee Drive. It took about 10 hours for city crews to repair.
Last Thursday, there was one on Stone Street.
Before that, a pipe broke at the intersection of Bradley and Burdick streets on May 27.
City Council Member Lisa Ruggiero blames the age of the pipes for the breaks.
“The one that broke is what they called transite, so it’s very brittle and the problem with it is you don’t ever really know when it goes except when it goes. The city still has quite a few old water mains left that are from the 1800s,” she said.
With these old pipes breaking, the city has been busy making repairs.
Watertown Mayor Jeff Smith says the city has been working on projects that are set to replace the old pipes across the city, including on Bugbee, where Monday’s break happened.
“Many of the projects have already started. They are in the design phase. So after the design phase is completed, we’ll put them up for bid and some of that will hopefully be done by the end of the summer. But probably a majority will be completed next year,” he said.
It’s all part of a more than 8.6 million dollar project the city has been working on.
A majority of the money for this project came from the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
“I just think that it’s important for residents to understand that they are going to be seeing a lot of construction around the city this year and next and to ask if they can be patient,” said Ruggiero.
Once these projects are finished, it’ll be on to the next as the city tries to keep up with its aging infrastructure.
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