Water bubbling from your street? Here’s why pipes are breaking across Columbia
If you’ve noticed water inexplicably emerging from city streets, there’s a reason.
Between 75 and 100 main line water breaks need repairs across the city, Assistant City Manager Clint Shealy told The State.
The city is used to repairing leaks each winter, Shealy said, but this year the problem is exacerbated both by wide temperature swings that more heavily impact old pipes and a desperate need for more employees.
The water department is more than 200 people short. About 33% of jobs in that department are open. The city holds weekly open interviews and plans to increase pay, with the hopes of attracting more workers. But in the meantime, the department is prioritizing the biggest leaks and getting to the others when it can.
Shealy stressed none of the breaks are on city thoroughfares, and if there is a problem on a main road – like on Garners Ferry Road last month – it would be fixed first.
The majority of the leaks are in areas where the water department “inherited” old infrastructure, Shealy said. He listed Forest Acres, Irmo, St. Andrews and Eau Claire as the hardest-hit locations.
“Ultimately you don’t win that battle by just fixing leaks, you win that battle by replacing infrastructure,” Shealy said — an undertaking he said the city is currently planning.
But leaking pipes are not the only problem city workers are facing. Mainline repairs made up barely 3% of the department’s outstanding work orders as of Jan. 28, according to a report prepared each month for city council members.
Shealy said he did not have data for February, but said the figures are reflective of the current backlog.
The department is approximately 4,000 work orders behind, on tasks ranging from meter installations, repairs and replacements, to yard restoration projects. Roughly 200 service line repairs are outstanding. Those are leaks in the pipes connecting the main water line to a property.
The problem perpetuates itself. A backlog in work orders means more calls to the city’s customer call center, which is also understaffed for the volume it’s receiving – between 1,200 and 1,500 calls a day, with only about a dozen people available to answer the phones, according to a city action plan.
Shealy said some of the figures can be misleading. More than 600 requests are open for water meter installations across the department’s service area, but a portion of those are for unfinished developments.
Still, he said the backlog of requests paired with a record high number of open positions is a problem that needs to be addressed.
A so-far successful strategy has been contracting with small businesses in Columbia who are equipped to do some of the work. In January alone, small contractors repaired around 40 main line leaks, Shealy said.
Mayor Daniel Rickenmann has championed that strategy as a way to engage local entrepreneurs, and to tackle smaller-scale city projects faster.
He supported that option during a press conference Thursday morning, held to address the myriad customer service complaints the city is fielding because of the staffing problems across departments. There are about 600 unfilled positions citywide, including the more than 200 in the water department.
“There’s not a possible way we can hire 220 people to fill all these jobs, but at this point why would we do that when we have an opportunity to grow a small business,” Rickenmann said Thursday.
