Aquarion Officials Review Cause of Latest Glenville Water Main Break

Aquarion Water Co. engineers and officials were to make a field trip to Glenville Tuesday to inspect the site of two major water main breaks - the latest occurring on Saturday.

Water service and traffic were disrupted in the major traffic artery of Glenville and Riversville roads as crews excavated the road to replace a water line that ruptured about 5:30 p.m. Aug. 6. That break was just 8 days after the utility fixed another major water line failure on July 28, which washed out the intersection, closing it to traffic for more than a day. Service was disrupted to about 200 customers during that incident.

"(Tuesday) morning our internal team is going to be at the site formalizing details of plans of what they want to do next with that intersection," said Aquarion spokeswoman Lorraine Bukowski. "Once they have all their details set on what they want to do, then they will meet with First Selectman, the Emergency Management Director, the fire chief, the head of highway department ... to review the plan with them. The intention is for that to take place before the end of the week."

The break occurred about 5:30 p.m. Aug. 6 and caused the loss of water to 4 business and 46 residential customers until repairs were completed about 1 a.m. Aug. 7, according to Bukowski. The original break on July 28 destroyed the intersection which had to be excavated to replace the broken main and then rebuilt.

"What we could discern because they had to excavate that whole area and rebuild the whole intersection, is that the ground begins to settle. The best they can determine is the ground began to settle and caused a break to a section of the main," Bukowski said Monday.

"They (engineers) have been in discussions all day (Monday) and will be in discussions (Tuesday) trying to decide whether this subsequent main break was isoloated or whether more work needs to be done.," she added.

Meanwhile, Democratic First Selectman candidate John Blankley called upon incumbent Peter Tesei to "take accountability for the increasing number of costly infrastructure failures in Greenwich that inconvenience residents and cost small businesses revenues."

In a prepared statement, Blankley said, "The recent water main breaks in Glenville are just another reminder of how the town’s infrastructure has steadily crumbled under Mr. Tesei’s leadership. As First Selectman, I will work with the Department of Public Works and Aquarion to assess the condition of the town's water main network and proactively address its state of repair and replacement.”

In response, Tesei said, "All water lines are all owned and operated by Aquarion Water Co. the town only operates storm water and sanitary sewer lines. This is cheap political rhetoric with no basis of any understanding of the facts of the nature of the town's infrastructure  and I would expect nothing less from Mr. Blankley who’s shown his naiveté of his knowledge of the town."