Water service was down for many Town of Lake Cowichan residents, the afternoon of Saturday, May 28.
Residents’ lack of water lasted for a few  hours, and was a result of a water break off of one of the town’s main lines, on River Road, near North Shore Road.
Specifically, a hairline fracture on a brass fitting underground sparked the water break.
“We bypassed the system,” the town’s superintendent of Public Works Nagi Rizk said, shortly after water service was restored around 7 p.m. “Good thing the system allowed us to do the bypass.”
Although the problem had been bypassed at that point, with water service restored to residents, it doesn’t mean it’s been fixed, Rizk said at the time.
As he spoke, shortly before 8 p.m., water continued to shoot upwards out of the hairline fracture, with a team of Public Works employees waiting for the line to drain so they could repair it.
“We can’t [repair it] when the pressure’s so high,” Rizk said.
Public Works crews continued to work on the problem into the night.
The water break is part of the age-old problem of an aging infrastructure, Rizk said; perhaps a result of the dated street, which resonates more on pipes than newer streets do.
The Gazette covered this breaking news story as it developed, online, at www.lakecowichangazette.com.
