Faulty valve delays Aboite water relief

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) -- A faulty valve prevented Aqua Indiana from receiving water from the City of Fort Wayne as planned on Wednesday evening. Repairs began at dawn.

According to Aqua Indiana, the valve was fixed around 11:30 a.m. and the utility expects to begin receiving water around 2 p.m. on Thursday.

Several days of near-record water demand by its Aboite Township customers has resulted in low water pressure for some customers.

"Our message for water conservation went out almost two weeks ago and we saw no decline in water consumption," Bill Etzler, vice president of Aqua Indiana, said.

Etzler added that water pressure actually came back with just the Aqua system before Fort Wayne's water came online.

"Pressure stayed up all night for the first time in two weeks," he said. "I don't know if all the publicity yesterday helped and got people to understand that conservation was a good thing."

Aqua finalized an agreement with the City of Fort Wayne to open a pre-existing connection between the two utilities Wednesday afternoon. Crews planned to activate that connection at 9:00 p.m. Wednesday, but discovered a valve, which had not been used in years, was inoperable.

Etzler admitted he's surprised the company is having pressure problems. Crews are looking over all the infrastructure to find any leaks or other issues that could cause the problem. Four leaks were found out in the field, he said, but he didn't think they were large enough to be the culprits.

Demand is twice what it was this time last year at 5.2 million gallons a day compared to 2.6 million gallons, Etzler said. But, Aqua should be able to handle it.

"We have to look at what we missed, what caused this and we continue to do analysis to determine that. We've had higher demand last year, over 6 million gallons and we didn't have this problem. So, there's an anomaly some place we have to find. I'm as surprised as the customers are," Etzler said.

The water sharing plan calls for Aqua to tap the city’s supply and route that water to approximately 1,400 customers in an area north of State Road 14 from Hadley to Scott Roads.

Aqua Indiana expects this to reduce demand on the Aqua system and help maintain normal water pressure for Aqua customers system-wide. Neighborhoods targeted to receive city water are Shorewood, Abbey Place, Walnut Creek, Whispering Meadows, Falls of Beaver Creek and Brenton Glens.

Households converted to city water may notice a brief period of cloudiness during the transition.

Once the valves are opened, this supplement to the Aqua system will continue until further notice and until overall demand for water declines to a point where water pressure for Aqua customers can be maintained consistently.

Aqua continues to urge customers to stop watering their lawns and to report any suspected leak, unusual pools of water or areas that appear to be unusually green and moist. Customers can contact Aqua customer service at 877.987.2782.