UPDATE: Water main break shuts down Colorado Springs road
A Colorado Springs Utilities crew is working to repair a water main break that has shut down a portion of Montebello Drive west between Descanso Circle. and Tomah Road Sunday afternoon.
An 8-inch cast iron pipe broke, creating a sinkhole, and causing the road to buckle. According to the CSU outage map, 115 customers were without water. All water service was restored Monday at 8:15 a.m.
This isn’t the first water main break on West Montebello Drive in 2016, and neighbors say they’re tired of having to keep spare water on hand.
“It’s a pretty big inconvenience,” resident John Pace said.
“We have two small kids, trying to give them baths, us trying to take a shower, it kinda gets old,” neighbor Alan Kercater said.
Kercater lives about a block away from the massive sinkhole.
“We heard a bunch of gurgling in the pipes in the crawl space, didn’t know what it was at first, then we realized we had no water,” Kercater said.
West Montebello Drive has seen three water main breaks this year alone. But this one, is the worst Kercater has ever seen.
“It looks bigger than the last sinkhole we had,” Kercater said.
The cast iron pipes are supposed to last 50 years.
“Now as time goes on the cast iron pipe is starting to wear out past it’s life expectancy so that’s where you get the water main breaks,” Colorado Springs Utilities water construction supervisor Robert Powell said.
The water beneath the asphalt behaves similar to a water balloon. The water finds the path of least resistance beneath the asphalt. When it can’t take any more pressure, it breaks.
“We’ll end up tearing up all the asphalt to where there is no more damage,” Powell said.
Powell also says they’ll most likely replace the old pipe with newer materials, but that doesn’t guarantee West Montebello Drive will be free from problems in the future.
“There is still going to be old pipe in the ground, the chances of it happening again, could happen,” Powell said.
Kercater’s hope is all the old cast iron pipes get replaced all together.
“Just kind of concerned here on out what more water breaks we’re going to have.
Colorado Springs Utilities estimates it will have the water turned back on at 11:45p.m. Sunday. Crews are working to get the sinkhole fixed as well, and are hoping to have the closed section of West Montebello Drive back open Monday afternoon.
CSU has released a statement on its Facebook page, and is expected to provide updates there as well.
