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Wrightsville Beach
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Town to discuss valve fix in light of recent water main breaks  

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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.

New park restrooms

The restroom facilities in Wrightsville Beach Park, which are at least 30 years old, could be upgraded in the coming years.

The board of aldermen will discuss allowing architect Chris Hemingway of BMH Architects to create a preliminary design for the project. Hemingway also designed the town’s lifeguard stands.

Proposed bathroom upgrades include increasing the number of toilets, remodeling the interior and exterior, making the facility handicap accessible and creating more covered outdoor space.

Bathroom facility upgrades would accompany several other additions to the park, such as the recently completed inclusive playground and a multi-use path for which the town will seek a matching grant. The town would apply for a grant to help pay for the bathroom upgrades as well.

Duplicate sewer line

Wrightsville Beach leaders and staff will also discuss the need for a duplicate town sewer line due to the condition of the current one, a 14-inch, 30-year-old pipe that transports all the island’s sewage underneath the Intracoastal Waterway to be treated on the mainland.

In a memo, town manager Tim Owens said he talked to engineering personnel who told him “the town should be concerned about the current condition of the pipe and what appears to be an unacceptable amount of joint deflection in the pipe.”

The pipe’s questionable condition and the associated dangers became an issue in 2014 when real estate business Bailey and Associates proposed building boat slips in the Intracoastal near the pipe. The proposed location was not within town property, but the aldermen submitted a formal objection to the project, arguing that construction near the pipe could cause it to fail.

Steve Dellies, assistant public works director at the time, described such a leak as “a minimum of 300 gallons of sewage that we can’t control.”

Owens will recommend the board allow town staff to move forward with a condition assessment of the current line and begin engineering of a redundant line. Given the multiple agencies involved, Owens stated in a memo, the project could take several years.

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