The valves throughout Wrightsville Beach’s water system don’t close all the way, greatly increasing the repair time of recent water main breaks on Waynick Boulevard, Bermuda Drive and Harbor Island and prolonging both the inconvenience and the potential fire safety issues associated with low water pressure.
During its Aug. 11 meeting, the Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen will consider whether to implement a program to fix and maintain the valves. The valves won’t close due to a buildup of sediment, said Bill Squires, public works director, so the program would involve opening and closing the valves to grind the sediment away.
Valve exercising, as it’s called, should be done regularly, he added, but “we’ve been neglecting that for the past 10 years or so.”
The valves are used to reroute the water supply in the event of a water main break to affect the least amount of customers and make repairs more efficient. Recent efforts to repair water main breaks have taken hours longer than they should have, Squires said, because crews couldn’t shut off the water spewing out of the leak to locate and fix it.
The hole they dug in the street kept filling with water, he said, explaining, “You can’t see anything. You don’t know where the pipe is, you don’t know where the wires are because it’s just gushing water.”
The longer it takes to locate and fix the break, the more water is wasted, Squires said, and the longer the surrounding customers have low water pressure. Low water pressure presents an inconvenience, he said, but also a potential fire danger.
“Any time the pressure drops too low, you don’t have enough pressure to fight a fire,” he said.
Another benefit to regularly cleaning the valves, he added, is extending their life so they don’t have to be replaced as frequently.
