The City of Gallup experienced a water outage on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26 when there was a break on a connector near the airport which affects the northside and southside of the city.
Gallup Water and Sanitation Executive Director Dennis Romero told the Gallup Sun Nov. 27, “It looks like something started about 3 am and didn’t break until 7:05 yesterday morning.”
He said the department learned of the problem around 7:10 am, when complaints began coming in from the trademark pressure zone.
The leak was isolated around 9 am and Romero said it took another two and a half hours to re-route the water to bring the pressure back up.
Water service for the area was restored around 1:30 pm.
But water issues continued to occur.
“At 10 last night there was a break on an old repair on Second Street, south of Rio Puerco,” Romero said.
Romero called it a “transient” or a “water hammer” which impacted the old repair after the earlier leak was fixed.
He explained that in addition to the pressure going up and down quickly, the area on the Second Street repair, made 10 or 15 years ago, had an additional issue. It was fixed with flowable fill which adds weight around the pipe.
Flowable fill is a workable slurry of cement that hardens.
Romero said that break was isolated and workers were brought in and out throughout the night to address it. However, on the morning of Nov. 27, complaints were coming in from Pershing Drive.
“We called a contractor in,” he said “and found a leak on the line to the east of the intersection of First and Wilson.”
When the contractor came on duty, Pershing’s water was restored, but the Black Diamond Canyon Drive area was affected, and that line has been undergoing repairs since 9 am.
Romero says that work could continue until 5 pm.
At this time, the water department is studying a Second Street pressure problem, which could cause a loss of pressure for the downtown Gallup business area fed by the Second Street line.
At 10:46 am Nov. 27, Romero said a leak was found in a ten-inch cast iron line just north of the alleyway between Coal and Rte. 66. It was isolated and pressure was restored to the Gallup downtown area.
Romero says there may continue to be discolored water on the North Side, and around South Woodrow going west to the airport.
The yellowish color is due to naturally occurring minerals getting stirred up in the iron pipe of the water main.
The City of Gallup Water Department also put out a dispatch Nov. 27 saying water customers in the area of 100, 106, 201 & 201A of West Hwy 66 and surrounding areas may experience low water pressure as late as 7 pm and that the department will need to shut off the water temporarily in order to conduct repair operations safely.
People who wish to "self-flush" may turn on cold water full force from the bathtub faucet until water runs clear again. Do not run hot water, as the sediment that is stirred up could damage your water heater. This process should take about 15 minutes.
Romero said with a large leak, this is typically what happens. Once it is isolated, it causes problems throughout the entire system, straining weaker connections.
The water department continues to monitor SCADA [Supervisory Control and Data Analysis] in an effort to minimize further impact.
