EVERETT – Thousands of gallons of water bubbled up from under a gravel pile at Titan Rock Products after an Everett water line broke Wednesday morning.
City workers say it’s impossible to measure how much water leaked from the broken pipe.
“The city got right on it and got it stopped as quickly as they could. Everything’s pretty well intact,” said owner Kyle Bride of his Pacific Avenue business.
He said Titan sits about 25 feet upland from the Snohomish River, and much of the water leak flowed into river.
The 48-inch steel water pipe was installed in 1958. Though it’s unclear what caused the break, it could have been corrosion or a defective weld between lengths of pipe.
“For whatever reason, it decided that today was the day it didn’t want to hold its pressure anymore,” Bride said.
The water line, one of the city’s four main water lines, carries water to downtown Everett from Chaplain Reservoir near Sultan.
Unlike the city’s other three water lines that carry drinking water, this 18.4-mile pipeline carries an average of 32 million gallons a day of untreated water for industrial use by Kimberly-Clark Corp.
Public utility workers shut down the line Wednesday morning, shifting Kimberly-Clark’s water supply to another line.
City spokeswoman Kate Reardon said it’s unclear how long it will take to repair the water line, but crews have already started digging to expose the pipes and inspect the damage.
There was no interruption in service to Kimberly-Clark, but it created a nuisance at Titan Rock Products. While property damage appeared minimal, it disrupted the business.
“Basically, we’re going to have to spend some time and effort removing material from the area so (public works) can have access,” Bride said. “We’re just dealing with it the best we can.”
The broken line was one of several water-line issues in the Marysville and Everett area Tuesday and Wednesday.
In an unrelated incident Wednesday morning, Marysville public works shut down a section of its water pipeline after a contractor damaged the line, said Greg Keith, public works manager of operations.
That line closure changed the water system’s pressure, resulting in a broken valve elsewhere. It only affected service in 20 or 30 homes, Keith said, but others may have noticed increased water pressure Wednesday morning.
Tuesday afternoon, there was a much smaller leak in an effluent line near the Everett High School gymnasium. The line is part of a system that carries treated wastewater through an outfall into Port Gardner Bay.
Repairs are under way, and there was no property damage, Reardon said.
“The timeliness of these obviously is coincidental, but it’s certainly something we do,” Reardon said. “We respond to these things on a daily basis.”
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