By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
The culinary water pipeline leading from the well under
Interstate 15 Freeway to Mona Town is not producing the
volume of water expected.
Bryce Lynn, mayor; Allen Pay, water master; and Doran
Kay, council member over water, have been investigating to
determine the pipe size and whether or not the pipe has
something to do with the volume of water being
distributed.
One problem has already been uncovered but the pipe
size will still need to be determined.
"Some of the problem," said Lynn, "was that the valve
was not set right so we were getting less flow."
However, he said, the area has been blue staked and
the earth would be dug to the line so that it could be
determined what size pipe had been laid under the
roadway.
"We will dig on the west side of the freeway," said
Lynn. "We have a photo of the east side."
Doran Kay, council member over the water system, said
there were several details that needed to be considered in
fixing the problem with the town's water system.
"The first is that we need to investigate to see
exactly how big a line it is that goes under the freeway to
the upper storage tanks," said Kay. "The second critical
items is that we need to locate a pressure station somewhere
in this town that connects the whole culinary system
together so that the whole town draws off both the lower
thank and the upper tank at the same time."
Lynn said that when Ken Orton, field staff
coordinator, met with the council to discuss the line under
the freeway, he pointed out that no one was certain of the
size of the culinary line that feeds under the freeway.
"We know what it was supposed to be but whether or not
that is what we have is not known," said Lynn.
If the line is a six-inch line then the town has been
cheated. There would be no way to recoup that cost because
it was put in the ground so many years ago that the company
who did the work has not only gone out of business but so
long ago that any funds left to take care of problems would
have long since run out.
"Orton told us that if we had a 10-inch line on the
big tank side if, at the freeway, it necks down to a
six-inch line, theoretically, the entire distribution
systems up to the six-inch line is only a six-inch line,"
said Kay.
A secondary feeder could be fed under the freeway
inside the same pipe that was constructed to hold the
current water distribution pipe. If necessary, another
pipeline could be bored under the roadway.
"Every time that you double the pipe size, you four
times the volume," said Kay, "that was what Orton was trying
to tell us."
If the town were to take a two-inch line in the
distribution system and increase it to a four-inch line, the
line would carry four times the capacity and will reduce the
frictional drag on the line by the same four times.
Another recommendation was made by Orton that all
culinary systems in town be looped. In other words, taking
out dead ends helps eliminate cross connections because the
flow characteristics or the velocity of water moving through
the distribution system is sufficient.
"Until we are done with the digging, we will not know
how big the pipe coming under the freeway is," said
Lynn.
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