Syracuse residents should be seeing improvements in water pressure after dozens of water main breaks combined with reduced water intake severely strained the city’s aging water system in recent weeks. Residents living in high rises or at higher elevations were most affected. Common councilors called a committee meeting Wednesday to get details from the water department on what happened and how it’s addressing the problems. Water Commissioner Robert Brandt said the severe winter was a major factor.
“We had 57 breaks by January 31st, a lot of them happened in with a two week span. So we knew we were losing water," Brandt said. "We knew we weren’t catching up with the water intake, and we thought we resolved them when we fixed the breaks. The numbers started going up, but then more breaks kept coming in. We just kept chasing our tail.”
To make matters worse, Brandt says large water mains were freezing and breaking, in addition to the usual smaller ones. He says they also found broken pipes at vacant homes, and on the first seven floors of the vacant former Skyline Apartment complex. Some of the pumps that add pressure to parts of the gravity-fed system also broke down. On Sunday, high winds stirred up sediment in Skaneateles Lake, forcing reductions to its water intake pipes. Brandt told councilor Pat Hogan they’re studying a $16 dollar plan from 2023 to extend the intake lines into deeper water, but that may not solve the problem.
BRANDT: “We're still getting turbidity at them [sic] levels."
HOGAN: “Why would the administration ask us to do that then?”
BRANDT: “Because the data the previous data from, I think when they originally started this project showed that it could possibly work. The technology has increased, so they're putting more buoys out there. And we're still getting turbidity issues.”
Brandt says they’re still weighing their options. The combination of water main breaks, leaks in the system, and reduced water intake means reservoir levels dipped critically low. He says those levels are recovering and should be back to normal by mid-May barring any future disruptions.
