Water line break snarls traffic, forces intersection closure

Traffic was a heavier than usual on Dec. 1 near the intersection of 1300 East and 9400 South because of a water line break along 1300 East. The 10-inch water pipe burst sometime that afternoon and had the Utah Department of Transportation and Sandy City scrambling to divert traffic and fix the problem.

Instead of surfacing near the break, the water flowed down 9400 South under the surface of the street, lifting the asphalt and making the area unstable, said Public Utilities Director Shane Pace.

“The water raised the road on the north side of 9400 South about six to eight inches above the curb and compromised the whole side of the street,” he said.

Sandy Public Utility crews closed off the intersection and worked through the night to fix the broken water pipe. Pace said the intersection was reopened on Dec. 2 but the north side of 9400 South remained closed for close to a week while UDOT fixed the road. Traffic was diverted to the south side of 9400 South with one lane going in each direction during that time.

Pace said normally when a line breaks the water surfaces and crews can fix it relatively easily. This break was a little more complicated because the water didn’t surface at the break because of a special fabric UDOT uses during road construction that helps the roads be more durable.

The fabric didn’t allow the water to surface, and because of the location of the break, gravity forced the water down the hill, damaging the road from 1300 East to the substation located below the Sandy Amphitheater. he said.

“The downside of the fabric that is used to fix the roads is that it won’t let the water rise. It’s great stuff to have on the roads, except in a situation like this,” Pace said.

The cost for the water line repair and fixing the road will be about $100,000 and will come out of the water fund’s budget, Pace said. Because the water from the line washed out the road, Sandy City was responsible to pay for the repairs done by UDOT. The road was repaved during the week it was closed, a temporary fix until spring comes.

Pace said UDOT had planned to do a project on 9400 South from 1300 East to 700 East in 2013 but has decided to move the project up to next year, although he didn’t have an exact date on when construction would begin.

There was no indication there was a problem with the water line or that it would break, Pace said. Recent construction could have shifted the dirt around the pipe, causing a weakness or there could have been a weakness in the pipe when it was installed. Even after the pipe was removed, there was no obvious cause for the break.

“There’s no way to know for sure why the pipe broke, which is not unusual,” Pace said. “There are a lot of different factors that could have played a role. The important thing is that it is fixed and traffic is back to normal.”