WINTERSVILLE, Ohio — A water main break in Wintersville this weekend left some residents without water for hours.
Thomas Beaver had his yard flooded Saturday by a broken water main and crews arrived on Sunday to fix the problem.
“Saturday night, our yard was full of water, and we tried calling about three or four different numbers because we didn’t want to alert 911 over it, and Sunday morning we woke up and the crew was out here digging,” Beaver said. “They spent probably 12 to 15 hours out here and, as far as I know, I think they got it under control. I’m just wondering when they’re going to come back to fill the hole up.”
Village Administrator Jesse Kosegi said water breaks are on the rise.
“We had a break in one of the subdivisions this weekend and we’ve had breaks throughout the year, but nothing compared to what it was in the past,” Kosegi said. “Fifty-eight percent of our lines are from the 1950s. Only 20% are from around the 2000s. So, every five years, we do asset management.”
“We have already started the process of what we want to do is do our main lines first, if we can. We have a main line on Main Street, Canton Road and Cadiz Road. Once you do that, you start doing the laterals and subdivisions.”
The project to resolve the problem is a long-term plan as pricing has yet to be finalized and takes years to complete, with the plan to replace each and every line projected to take 30 years.
Once completed, Kosegi said the new lines should last many years.
“Easy 100 years, absolutely,” Kosegi said. “And a lot of it’s going to be plastic. You have iron and stuff like that in there right now and some of these lines are deep, very deep. Some run through people’s yards, and whenever we do a waterline break, and we’ve done it in the past two years I’ve been here, even before that, we go into somebody’s yard and, if we have to dig it up. But when it’s done, we backfill it, we make it look better than it did.”
Kosegi said they do hear from residents the projects will affect.
“What inconvenience are they going to have?” Kosegi said. “And we work with them. Communication is the best thing. If something’s not right, we’ll fix it. We let them know what we’re doing. If a water break happens to be in their yard where the main line goes, we’ll tell them. We’re going to be there a while, but we’re there to fix it and get out.”