Work under way on Palmer water main break

PALMER — Repair crews expect to be working on Alaska Street for about two weeks after a water main cracked Tuesday night, sending a 4-foot geyser up through the pavement.

Carter Cole, Palmer’s director of public works, said he first got word about the geyser at about 8:30 p.m., during a city council meeting.

“Our police dispatcher called me and let me know there was water coming up through the street and then I notified our crews and we all assembled here and shut it down, watched it for a bit to make sure it was actually shut down,” Cole said.

Cole described the damage as a four-foot crack running laterally down the 10-inch steel pipe. That kind of damage requires more work than just a patch job. He said his department is going to have to replace it.

David Cheezem, who owns Fireside Books right in the middle of the affected block said Thursday that, so far, business doesn’t seem to have been affected.

“Business is good. It might be a little bit quieter but I think it just means that people park and instead of going to one shop they kind of walk between one shop and another. I haven’t seen that huge of a change,” Cheezem said. “Maybe we ought to just close off the street and make it a boulevard.”

His bookstore didn’t lose water service at all and he pointed out that the city luckily avoided what could have been a calamitous situation saying someone pointed out to him that Colony Days just ended.

“Worse case scenario it could’ve happened during the parade,” Cheezem said. “You never hear about it when anybody does anything right but the city did such a good job of being out here early in the morning and talking to all the business owners and letting them know what’s up.”

Cole said state grants from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to upgrade the water system in Palmer have already been secured, it’s an ongoing project with money coming in yearly installments.

“We know they’re failing in different areas. There was a program set up to replace these. We have two projects currently going on in different areas of the town,” Cole said.

This year’s installment of grant money he said hasn’t arrived yet but he can set his crews to work, knowing that the money is on its way. This particular piece of pipe was slated to be replaced in three years; that work will just have to get done early.

“It’s a pretty major thing that’s got to get done,” Cole said. “We would lose this whole section of street if we don’t go down and fix it.”

Traffic will be routed around the work area where crews with backhoes had already begun their work this afternoon. Cole said he plans to get signs in place directing traffic as soon as he can.

He said from what he’s seen, he wouldn’t feel comfortable letting anyone drive on the road until it’s fixed. Water lifted up the portion where the geyser punched through, buckling and cracking the asphalt. Also — the water created quite a large sinkhole under the pavement.

“You could’ve lost a couple of cars in the hole that was underneath it,” Cole said.

A couple of businesses lost water service temporarily, he said, but they have water now. Also, the storm drains siphoned off the water, so there was no flooding.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.