THE FIRE HYDRANT ISSUE

In the wake of the recent fires, there has been much discussion about what needs to be done to assist our firefighters in being able to effectively battle these blazes. Being an employee of the city’s Water Department, I’m quite familiar with the hydrants and the issues surrounding them.

 

There are no quick, easy fixes here. While something definitely needs to be done, it is a complicated issue that faces city officials. There is a litany of symptoms with our fire hydrants and the water system in general, but they all relate back to the same disease: Age.

 

In the recent fires, a lack of adequate pressure at the hydrants was a concern. In both of these episodes, the hydrants in question are fed by 4 inch lines. Now, I am no math major, but even I can see where a flow of water through a 4” pipe, being distributed through a 2 ½” nipple on each hydrant, would result in poor flow when even more than one hydrant was opened.

 

Add to that, the fact that many of the mains in town have a scaly build-up inside and the flow is even more restricted. Don’t go getting concerned that build-up in our water lines is going to turn your skin phosphorous green or something; it’s a natural accumulation that doesn’t pose a health threat. Unfortunately, this build-up can cut a 4” feed down even lower. There’s no way to determine how bad this accumulation is, outside of cutting out the pipe.

 

Of course, this is due to that aforementioned villain, Age.

 

Many years ago, when this system was put into place, these 4” mains were probably quite adequate to supply the firefighting equipment of the time. Modern fire trucks and equipment, however, make use of water at a MUCH higher flow rate. Hopefully, one of our fine AFD members might read this and post some info about their current equipment to enlighten us more on the needs of that equipment, as far as water pressure.

 

The Water Dept. is staffed by five members. We would love nothing better than to be able to attack the issues with hydrants that need maintenance and repair every day, but that just isn’t feasible. To do this, we would have to ignore all the issues of a rapidly aging infrastructure of the entire city’s water system. We deal with leaks on main and service lines every day. A resident who has water pouring into their basement (rightfully) doesn’t want to hear that they’ll have to deal with it for a few weeks while we repair fire hydrants.

 

Think about your car or your home…Do you have more repair issues as they age? - Of course. - Our system of water pipes, valves and hydrants is no different. They’re not getting any younger.

 

So, what’s the solution?

 

That’s the tricky part. City administration is in a tough spot, as they have to deal with a crucial issue with no easy solution. No matter what avenue they take, money will definitely be the most critical ingredient, and taxpayers understandably don’t like to hear that.

 

We could replace big hunks of the miles of aging water mains that are old and inadequate. The price tag for such a project would be absolutely staggering. I don’t know what kind of assistance our city might be able to obtain from the Feds, but I seriously doubt it would be enough to put a dent in a project of such magnitude and scope.

 

As far as the hydrants that currently need repair, that is a more workable issue, but one that would still require a substantial amount of financial investment. If memory serves, we currently have five new hydrants we could install. The price tag to buy the remaining needed hydrants would be quite impressive.

 

Once purchased, the DPW and Water Dept. are fully capable of installing them, but here’s where time becomes an issue. It’s ridiculous to suggest that everything else be dropped until this work is done, as I outlined earlier, the total workload requires a triage approach that is handled by management to the best of their ability. Again, they can’t have water flooding basements or cascading down streets, so the hydrants unfortunately have to take their place.

 

One solution would to be have crews come in every Saturday and work on only hydrants until things get caught up. But there again, you are talking about overtime pay, which again would have to be funded somewhere, somehow.

 

A good example of how things get behind was this week. On Tuesday we began repair of a water service line on Grand St. The job went fairly smoothly, and at the end of the first day, we had everything excavated and prepped to install the new line on Wednesday.

 

Then, the fire happened. At the scene, National Grid accidentally ripped out a water service line. Now they couldn’t cut the gas to the burning building until we stopped the flow of water into the hole they had dug. We were occupied there all day on Wednesday, handling the situation. It was, of course, all very necessary work that also happened to push everything in our schedule back yet another day.

 

With an aging water system, the challenges are great. Of course we need to do something to ensure the safety of our residents, but I have written this piece to hopefully shed a little light on the intricacies of actually getting a plan in place.