For the week of June 25 - July 1, 2003

Bellevue begins hunt 
for water leaks

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By MATT FURBER
Express Staff Writer

In the continuing search for its missing water, Bellevue officials decided at a special meeting Tuesday, June 17, to test for fragile water mains and get a contract for a monitoring system.

"We’ve been through this many times," Mayor John Barton told council members. "We need to begin to act."

The city anticipates outside help in the form of grants and expertise as it works to fix infrastructure problems. Until then the council hopes that taking proactive steps this summer will help tip the scales in the city’s favor when grant applications are considered.

The big question is what happens to the 250,000 gallons of water the city losses each day.

The missing water would go to keeping storage levels up and improve the efficiency of the city pumping stations.

There could be pinhole leaks throughout the system or there may be major leaks in a few locations. The council’s mission is to find out. The plan is to hire help for leak detection, install a monitoring system, promote conservation and test the integrity of water main pipe throughout the oldest sections of the city.

City council members agreed to some form of each measure, but testing samples of water mains met with the most resistance.

Councilwoman Tammy Schofield recommended taking a cue from the lessons of past administrations that long-ago recognized Bellevue’s water problems.

"If someone had told me 20 years ago (the system) was old, it’s blasted ancient now," she said.

The city needs to start somewhere, said Barton. (Otherwise), "We are waving over the ground saying everything out there is worn out. It might not be as bad as you think."

As a start utility superintendent Rick Turner will begin taking pipe samples wherever he exposes the mains to fix routine leaks or install a new tap.

Eventually the city may come up with a schedule for testing the rest of the city.

"Who knows what we have out there," said councilwoman Vivian Ivie.

"A can of worms," responded councilman Parke Mitchell.

As a whole the council acknowledged it was time to begin to spend some of the city’s significant water budget savings to begin fixing the system, but they were conscious of spending money in the best possible way. That was one reason why the council chose to pursue the least expensive SCADA system.

The council also approved fees for the installation of water meter vaults that will soon be required on all new construction. Vaults installed this year will be tested over the winter to see how they hold up to freezing conditions.

New fees for the vaults include the tap fee and range from $1100 for 3/4-inch pipe to $2100 for 2-inch pipe.

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