About half a dozen times just this year, one road in the Town of Schaghticoke has experienced multiple water main breaks and officials aren't sure why.
Calhoun Drive is a Rensselaer County highway home to farms, crops and a close-knit neighborhood.
One Friday this fall, it had three water main breaks on the same day. Residents had to boil their water in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
Town Water and Sewer Operator Shawn Cross says his department is stumped.
“I don't know if it was an imperfection in the pipe or what but they were large breaks and required sections of the watermain to be replaced,” Cross said. “Why I had three of them one day? That's a good one, too. I really don't know; I've never had anything like that happened before. I'm not sure if it's something to do with the quality of pipe that install years ago, or just bad luck.”
The lines were installed on the nearly 2-mile stretch of road more than 20 years ago. Cross says they were referred to as “100-year pipes” — but he says it was only about 10 years before they started breaking. And as time goes on, the breaks happen more often.
Cross says while he is unsure of the exact cause of the breaks, it could be due to different materials used to build and install the pipes and terrain across the town. On a social media post by the Melrose Fire Department, which frequently provides updates on breaks on the road and throughout the town, residents complained of heavy trucks traveling down the road where there is a posted weight limit. Cross says he doesn’t think stress on the pipes is the reason for failure.
“The pipe is actually rotting. It is a rot hole that is letting loose,” Cross said. “And that is caused by well, a lot of things because it whether it's hot soils in the ground, or not properly installed or no good drainage route and water sits against it. There's a lot of things but I don't believe that any of the failures that we've had on Calhoun Drive have anything to do with trucks or heavy loads going up and down the road.”
Cross says a solution will not be simple. He thinks the only remedy is replacing the watermain pipes.
Dominic Pasinella Jr. is a resident of Calhoun Drive and a member of the Melrose Fire Department. Pasinella says the road is becoming more unsafe with each break.
“When these pipes break, they undermine the roads and then they have to dig them all up,” Pasinella said “And then as you can see, you drive up and down the road. The roads aren't flat and smooth. They're all bumpy. You know, they're not. I don't know, like, there's parts of the road where they didn't put blacktop back. They just threw, like, dirt in there.”
Pasinella says the town has not been transparent about the breaks, which often require fire department resources.
“A day or two went by and then they told us ‘We're extending the do not drink for like another two days.’ So, it was a three-to-four-day window where we couldn't drink the water which made me wonder why. What the testing they were doing, what was shown in the water? I feel like the town's very quiet about it. Like they don't try to like I promote it on our Facebook page, because a lot of people follow our fire department Facebook page. So, I try to let the people know, ‘hey, the pipes are down, blah, blah, blah. But I kind of feel like the town doesn't make like, like if a water main break happened to the city of Troy, the city puts it right out, like they put a radio, they put a TV they try to let everybody know. Up here I don't I don't feel like the town does that.”
A request for comment to the Rensselaer County Highway Department, which is responsible for maintaining the road, was not returned.
