SABINE PASS — The combination of aging water lines, rising summer temperatures and increasing demand have resulted in a number of water main breaks in the southwest part of the city recently.
In the past several days, City crews have repaired 17 water main breaks in the Sabine Pass area, near South Gulfway Drive. The main breaks have interrupted service to approximately 30 residential water customers, according to Jimmie Johnson, director of water utilities.
City officials are meeting with an engineering group today to ascertain the scope of work to replace the aging water mains. Once the scope, design and costs have been determined, the Council can consider approval of the work as an emergency project to allow construction to begin as soon as possible. It is estimated that the planning phase will take two to four weeks.
“We understand that any water outage during the summer is inconvenient for our
customers,” Johnson said in a press release. “We want to assure customers that we will continue to spot repair main breaks as they occur while we are working to address the replacement of these water lines as quickly as we can.”
Johnson said the City will replace approximately 5, 000 linear feet of water lines in the affected area. The current four inch water mains will be replaced with 6 or 8 inch mains, which will increase capacity to meet the demand of the Sabine Pass area residents and an industrial customer.
Estimates for construction time and cost will not be available until the scope of work is determined.
The City is notifying customers of service outages through the Southeast Texas Alerting Network ( STAN). Residents who are not currently in the system can register online at www.TheStan.com. Customers who do not have access to a computer can call John Tatroe, support services director for the network, at 409- 983- 8668.