GLADEWATER, Texas (KLTV) – The City of Gladewater faces an ongoing problem: boil water notices. After a water line break, they put one out for Gladewater residents on Wednesday. City officials say breaks are a problem they’ll deal with as they happen, which is four times so far this year.
Gladewater City Manager Charles Smith said Wednesday’s water line break happened after they replaced about 400 feet of wastewater line.
“As they were back filling that hole, there was some dirt and clay with the older water line that was in there. It collapsed that water line and caused a major water leak on a six-inch water line,” Smith said.
The break drained one of the city’s water towers.
“Our clear water was still full in one of the water towers,” Smith said.
He said the breaks are because of the city’s age.
“It’s just because the city’s 150 years old, and we’ve got a lot of old infrastructure,” Smith said.
He said there were areas with no water flow in the city. Part of the problem is that they can’t shut down sections of the system since valve locations have been lost over time.
“Since I’ve been here over the last two years, we’ve found over 60 valves,” Smith said.
They are keeping location records and replacing the valves that don’t work. Restaurants in town deal with the situation to stay open. Tele’s Owner Nona Peralta said they use a lot of bottled water when there’s a break.
“We have to tell customers about the problem and put a notice at the door, and some people don’t want to stay to eat,” Peralta said.
She says customer loss is costing them money, as is using bottled water for dishwashing and consumption, but it’s better than shutting down. When the line was patched and water turned back on, a line a few blocks away broke.
“It was one that we could isolate. We knew where the valves were, so we got it turned off, got it fixed,” Smith said.
But, Smith feels there are more breaks to come.
“It didn’t happen overnight, and we can’t fix it overnight,” Smith said.
Smith said the boil water notice was lifted at about 3 p.m. The city is working on getting water development loans for future infrastructure improvements.
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