By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
This year has proven to be a busy one for the rank and file servicemen of the Moapa Valley Water District. During the first seven months of 2019, district crews have faced a maelstrom of pipe leaks, line breaks and other system failures that have kept them constantly on the move from one problem to another.
The small crew of half-dozen Servicemen at the MVWD is tasked with keeping the sprawling distribution system of pipes, valves, tanks and pumps in good repair. With around 181 miles of pipeline serving a rural community spread out over 26 miles from Warm Springs to Simplot, this is a tall order in a normal year. But 2019 has not been a normal year.
“We used to expect a ‘leak season’ at certain times of the year,” said Lead Serviceman Bryan Greig. “That was during the really hot months of summer, and, occasionally when the temperatures dropped in winter. But now the leak season is pretty much all the time.”
A look at the MVWD service record bears this out. The number of system repairs have seen a steep increase over the past few years. Back in 2007, MVWD crews fixed 105 leaks throughout the year; about eight per month. By 2017, that number had jumped to 181 for the year; about 15 per month. But over the first seven months of 2019, MVWD crews have experienced no less than 135 line breaks. That is 19 per month. And there are still another five months to go in the year!
All of this has served to keep MVWD crews busy. Because of the vital importance of maintaining water service to customers, there is always someone on call in case a failure, line break or security breach is detected anywhere in the system.
On the up-side, this has provided the opportunity to MVWD crew members to earn plenty of overtime pay. But the servicemen have learned that they can have too much of a good thing.
“It used to be that people wanted to be the one on call after hours because you might pick up some overtime,” said Lead Serviceman Nick Shakespear. “But nowadays you kind of dread it because you are pretty much guaranteed to have a long night away from home.”
MVWD Serviceman Dan Bevan illustrates an extreme example of this. Over the July 4th holiday weekend, Bevan was the Serviceman on call. He ended up logging 30 hours of overtime that week, just covering various system failures.
Bevan said that those kinds of work weeks, while good for the bank account, take a toll on the family life. “You are just getting in to time with the family and the phone rings,” Bevan said. “Everybody takes a breath knowing what it is, but you have to take the call. Then you’re rushing out the door to respond and your wife asks how long it will take. But you really can’t say. It could be 30 minutes or it could be all night, you just don’t know.”
Greig said that, because people grow so accustomed to going to the tap and always finding water there, they may feel like it is an easy process getting it there. But there is a lot of effort, time and sacrifice that goes into it, he said.
“People really don’t realize how much goes into it,” Greig said. “You might wake up in the morning and turn on the water and have no idea that someone was up all night fixing a leak that had your water service out for a while that night. I guarantee that exact scenario happens more often than people think.”
So what is causing this exponential increase in system leaks? MVWD General Manager Joe Davis said that there are several factors at play here.
First of all, the MVWD distribution system is an aging system.
“The system was originally built in the 1960s and there are large parts of it that are still that old infrastructure,” said Davis. “It has had a long lifespan, but a lot of it is due to be replaced.”
Interestingly, a second culprit in this summer’s spate of leaks has been some out-of-the-ordinary geologic events in the region. Not normally known for having a great deal of seismic activity, the southern Nevada region has felt some strong tremors from earthquakes centered in the California desert this summer. Davis explained that even a little shaking of the ground can cause havoc to an older system not built to withstand such activity.
“It might be just a coincidence,” said Davis, “but we saw a whole series of leaks in our system in the days just following those earthquakes.”
The third strike against the MVWD system has been the relatively recent installation of new pipe materials that have since been shown unsuitable for the Moapa Valley climate. The problem product is called polyethylene pipe, or simply “poly pipe.” Most of the district’s share of it has been installed within the last eight years or so.
“It’s great for other areas of the country,” Davis said of the poly pipe. “Back east they love it, it’s the greatest thing for them. But it just doesn’t hold up here in the desert southwest where the water temperatures are higher running through the pipe. The warmer water breaks down the cellular structure of the pipe from the inside.”
Davis said that MVWD is not alone in facing this problem. Other entities throughout the region, including Virgin Valley Water District, have experienced similar problems with poly pipe. It has caused a major expense for several water entities across the west, he said.
Over recent years, the MVWD used poly pipe in some of its major pipe replacement projects. Several years ago when the new sewer main lines were built in Overton, the MVWD took the opportunity to replace its main water line through the downtown business district. They used poly pipe. When the county paved Henrie Rd in Moapa, the district seized the chance to replace its main line to that large neighborhood. They used poly pipe.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking example was the Valley Heights subdivision off of Whipple Ave. in Logandale. When that development was first built, the district put in another type of pipe that was later found to be faulty as well. As the replacement costs for that situation added up, the district went through a lawsuit against the manufacturer and was awarded damages to replace the pipe. In recent years those replacements were made. But the district used the new poly pipe materials in the replacements. Now, only a few years later, that new pipe is already failing again all throughout the subdivision.
The district is now preparing to file suit against the manufacturer of the poly pipe. “There is strong evidence that they knew that this pipe wouldn’t work in warm water conditions,” said Davis. “Yet they sold it to us, and others, anyway.”
A lawsuit takes time, though. In the interim, this problem has resulted in a significant financial hit to the district at a time when the rural entity really can’t afford it.
“With this year being a cool, wet year, we are running short in our revenues for the year,” Davis said. “Meanwhile we face a $600,000 shortfall in our budget. These things will definitely affect water rates in general and we just hope that people out there understand that a lot of these cost increases have been completely outside of our control.”
