Paterson water main break highlights concerns about aging infrastructure
Repairs that officials thought would take a day or two have now stretched to almost a week.
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Some residents in Passaic County who have been without water for nearly a week due to a water main break in Paterson could see service by Thursday.
Repairs that officials thought would take a day or two have now stretched to almost a week. But officials say that trying to address over 100-year-old problems with modern technology is proving to be difficult.
"One of the complicated aspects of it is we don’t have reliable drawings of what is in the ground,” Jim Mueller, executive director of the Passaic Valley Water Commission, said a few days ago.
News 12 spoke with civil engineer William Kroth about the situation. Kroth now works at the Sterling Hill Mining Museum, but once worked for the City of Paterson’s engineering department. Kroth is familiar with Paterson’s infrastructure and says underground pipes are coming to the end of their service life.
"It’s 140 years old. Rust never sleeps. There’s no way to maintain it. Sadly, they’re starting to fail," Kroth said.
Kroth says there’s no way of maintaining these systems that were put in over a century ago, and that protecting iron pipes from rusting is nearly impossible. He says they’re further exacerbated by pressure, traffic vibration, chlorine and possibly recent earthquakes in New Jersey.
"That could have sent some shockwaves that affected the stress of the pipe," Kroth said.
The price tag for repairing or replacing an entire system is astronomical, according to officials. According to the Passaic Valley Water Commission, there is an $800 million plan to address the aging system.
"We put a Band-Aid where we have an eruption like this, we put a Band-Aid on it and everything is good, but we're only delaying the inevitable," Kroth said.
