Public Works Finds the "Big One"
Contractor McKim & Creed helps locate a massive water leak on Columbine Blvd. in Cloudcroft. The Village water department fixes it.
Yesterday, with the help of water leak-detection experts, the Village found and repaired an approximately 2.5-million-gallon-a-month water leak.
Roots growing around the pipe indicated the leak had been there for a long time, according to Public Works Supervisor Joe John (JJ) Carrizal. “They are drawn to moisture,” he said.
For weeks, Carrizal has been monitoring dangerously low tank levels overnight, watching millions of gallons of water per month disappear into frozen ground.
The numbers were alarming. Wells running for 24 hours a day instead of 7. Water production doubled. And yet the tanks kept dropping.
Somewhere in Cloudcroft’s 10+ miles of aging pipe, water was escaping.
Since late December, Carrizal and the small Public Works team—Scott Powell, Sean O’Connor, Kris Parks, Joe Scarfe, and David Hunter—have searched for the leak while repairing minor leaks, installing isolation valves, plowing snow, treating wastewater, maintaining village buildings and parks, and more.
The Hunt
Carrizal called in professional help—McKim & Creed, a water asset management company specializing in leak detection. For $10,000, Jacob Lybrand and his team brought sophisticated equipment that amplifies sound five to ten times the levels of the equipment the village has.
The village also utilized Circuit Rider Fred Black’s expertise.
Black’s work is provided to the village through an annual membership fee to the New Mexico Water Association, funded through broader contracts, such as those with the USDA, to assist rural systems.
Lybrand has already identified multiple leaks in the village and will continue his work here through this Friday.
“We do water asset management for utilities. Most of the time we’re doing leak detection,” Lybrand explained. “We use what’s called a Micron 3, which is a listening device. You can hear like an ant crawling on the probe.”
Lybrand uses Enigma 3 pods—sensors placed on hydrants and valves across the system. They take three different tests, five minutes apart, listening to the pipe, and pinpointing the sound.
Midnight Detective Work
On the night of February 2nd, Lybrand and Carrizal worked into the early morning hours, placing sensors throughout the system.
“We were out here like what, 12, 1 o’clock?” Lybrand recalled.
By dawn on February 3rd, they had their answer. This one was loud enough to hear without equipment.
Standing over the spot, you could hear the rush of water underneath the pavement.
How it Adds Up
Carrizal did the hypothetical math on flow: “If you get a 10-gallon-per-minute leak, you go 10 gallons times 1,440—the minutes in a day. So that is 14,400 gallons a day times 30 days to find out how much you lose in a month.”
For perspective, Lybrand explained that in bigger systems, a 10-gallon-per-minute leak barely registers. “We’re used to working with any systems, but we work a lot of bigger systems too, where a 10-gallon-per-minute leak is almost like a drop in the bucket.”
But for Cloudcroft’s finite resources, it’s devastating.
“To them, you know, say you’re losing 100 gallons a minute. A 10-gallon leak is 10% of your loss,” Lybrand said. “To us, 10 gallons is huge,” Carrizal agreed.
The leak they repaired yesterday made a “60-gallon a minute difference by a conservative estimate,” according to Carrizal.
Dig it
After marking the spot in paint, locating fiber lines, and turning isolation valves, the crew dug deep.
As they dug, they had to vacuum up the leaking water using a specialized truck. After hours of work, the crew unearthed a steel water line split neatly in two.
Carrizal explained that soil shifting, earthquakes, and other movements can damage pipes.
Black said, “When I was in the east mountains, if I was seeing multiple leaks, it was tied to seismic activities.”
During repairs, the village had to shut off water for about an hour on Tuesday afternoon. Service has since been restored.
To repair the pipe, the team precisely placed a collar around it and tightened it. When water was turned back on, no leakage was detected.
Before-and-after readings at the four-inch meter at Hilltop Tank showed immediate results. Before the repair: ~75 gallons-per-minute (gpm) flowing into town at midnight from the 8-inch line—over 3.2 million gallons per month.
During peak demand, it was operating at over 80 gpm, Carrizal confirmed.
After the repair: ~21 gpm from the 8-inch line, around a 60 gpm reduction. Simply put, the leak was potentially costing the village over 2.5 million gallons of water per month.
Mayor Wiley and the Reader rode along with Carrizal to the Hill Top Tank and to the maintenance yard to see the new well readings early Wednesday morning.
Carrizal says he “still didn’t sleep well last night” and was up checking the flow rates to ensure the repair was holding.
He also said he planned to use the help from the circuit rider program and to budget for contractors for “the next one. It’s not if, it’s when, when it comes to leaks.”
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THANK YOU, JJ & crews!!
Fantastic work guys fixing those leaks. Stay warm and safe out there.