Members of the Riverton City Council took turns thanking the public works department this week for handling record amounts of snow over the Thanksgiving holiday – plus two water breaks after that.
“It’s nice to get calls from people actually thanking us for the snow removal as opposed to complaining about all the snow,” Councilmember Dan Peranteaux said. “And that was an immense amount of snow in a short period of time. You guys did a great job getting that moved.”
City crews clocked almost 300 work-hours plowing snow and sanding roads during the Thanksgiving storm, public works director Brian Eggleston told the council this week – and they’ve spent almost 240 more hours on snow removal.
As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, he said, the city had removed more than 3.7 million pounds of snow from local roadways, and they’ve applied 42 tons of ice-slicer.
“And we’re not done yet.” Eggleston said. “Crews have been coming in at 3 a.m. and working as quickly as they can before traffic starts picking up. …
“It’s a significant endeavor.”
Water breaks
Staff members have also been busy responding to multiple water breaks that have occurred since Thanksgiving – including one on the 24-inch line between the city’s 2 million gallon tank at the water treatment plant and the 2 million gallon tank on Airport Road, city administrator Kyle Butterfield said this week.
“The break was initially discovered by our water treatment plant crews when they saw a massive pressure drop and volume of water leave the tanks,” Butterfield said.
“In just a very short time, 1 million gallons of water moved through that break.”
Crews quickly mobilized, isolated the break and “shut it down” so they could begin working on a repair, Butterfield said, adding that residents served by the transmission line “have been given temporary water” and are working with city staff to ensure their water-related needs are met.
The break occurred near the intersection of Cowboy Lane and Cooper Road, where Butterfield said a section of the 24-inch line “sleeves” underneath a canal.
“That pipe sheared there,” he said. “We think it was the result of a water hammer.”
Riverton’s other recent water break occurred just after Thanksgiving in the area of West Main Street, but Butterfield said responding crews were able to “neck the water down” enough to allow service to remain in place during the holiday weekend, with the full repair taking place once the work week began.
“I do appreciate the commitment that we have from our staff,” Butterfield said, thanking the public works department as well as the building maintenance employees, first responders and police officers who worked the holiday weekend. “It is seen in the level of service they provide.”
For more information call the City of Riverton at 856-2227.