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Water line changes needed

Date: 8/29/2012

By Carley Dangona

carley@thereminder.com

WEST SPRINGFIELD — The town is using the recent Aug. 12 water main break as a springboard to improve its policies and procedures for handling such events.

The water main break began Aug. 12 and extended from Amostown Road to Kings Highway. It affected 26 homes, one 12-unit apartment building, and was not repaired until Aug. 17 when water was restored to residents. Part of the delay was created by the need to order parts from Texas since few companies still produce fittings for more than 120-year-old, 18" pipe.

"We're going through a review of the whole process — what went right, what went wrong," Mayor Gregory C. Neffinger said. "The efforts [to repair the break and restore water to residents] were a collaboration of the Department of Public Works, the Springfield Water Commission (SWC), Michele Cabral and the mayor's office."

Michele Cabral, Economic Development Administrator and Emergency Management Coordinator for West Springfield, said, "We're going to create procedural documentation for establishing a temporary water supply. We also want to mitigate a multi-valve system to enable smaller sections of pipe to be closed down at one time."

The town plans to add more valves when the other mains are replaced.

Neffinger continued, "The SWC has a policy that no one goes without water for more than 24 hours. This is one improvement [the town seeks to implement]. We're going to go back to the SWC and see what their best practices are, [to determine which] we can implement in West Springfield."

Cabral said, "We reached out to the SWC for aid in establishing a temporary water supply. We were able to deliver bottled water to residents and supply a water buffalo [tank]. Most houses had low water pressure available, so they were able to take care of basic human needs."

An update of the situation was delivered directly to residents. "We hand-delivered to all the people without water, [a notice] to help people understand how we were tackling the problem," Neffinger added.

Jeff Auer, deputy director of Water for West Springfield, was unavailable for comment.