This article was first published in the March 15 issue of The Mountain-Ear.

Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.

Of all the weekends of the year, the Frozen Dead Guy Days Festival was the most inconvenient weekend for Nederland to suffer a water main break. The leak was discovered on Friday and when water begin running down Second Street. By Saturday, Mayor Kris Larsen announced that part of the northern section of town would be without water for the next few days.

With about 23,000 people swarming around town, the break might have been a disaster but the Nederland Public Works Department determined that repair work wouldn’t start until Monday when they had all the parts they needed.

The roundabout mound became a detour area and then by Monday, it was dug out leaving a large 10-foot deep canyon with a stream running through the bottom of it.

Heavy equipment dug into the chasm locating the water main and then digging to find the break.

Traffic was detoured around the circle as public works employees worked all day on Monday.

“Once we see what the situation is with the water main, we’ll be able to begin repairs. It is likely that that we’re looking at a couple more days without water.”

The areas without water were:

North of 1st Street

South of 4th Street

West of Bridge Street

The Nederland Community Center supplied bottles of water for those in the affected area. The festival went on as usual.

By Tuesday, the Nederland Public Works department announced that it had exposed enough of the broken pipe to begin making repairs. Crews had gathered supplies to begin repairing the main within the hour of finding the leak.

Once the repairs were made it was necessary for the Town staff to flush the water mains which stirred up debris from the break. The town advised residents in the affected area not to run their water during this time to avoid drawing debris into the service line. During the flushing time, chlorine levels will be raised in the affected area to between 3 and 4 mg/L which is accepted as safe for human consumption according to the EPA’s drinking water standards. This is approximately triple what residents are used to and they may have noticed a chlorine smell which was flushed out by Tuesday night.

The cause of the break has not yet been determined.