Nashville engineer calls for updated infrastructure amid water main breaks, outages

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — It is only February, and so far, News 2 has reported on several water outages and water main breaks in Middle Tennessee.

The water main break on White Bridge Pike is the most recent incident. On Wednesday, Feb. 21, people who live near White Bridge Pike woke up to no running water due to a major water main break.

Metro Water Services told News 2 crews have been working since early Wednesday morning to repair the 16-inch water main break.

Officials said the break might be fixed at midnight or later, and that will affect the cleanliness and operation hours of the Nashville Humane Association (NHA).

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Taylor Spreitler, the public relations and community outreach coordinator for the NHA, explained that to maintain the animals’ health and wellness, employees sanitize and wash their toys, blankets, and dishes daily.

With over 100 dishes, laundry bins, and toys still left to be washed, the shelter had a delayed opening. Spreitler said they need clean water as soon as possible.

“It’s something you don’t realize how much you use of it and how much of it goes into absolutely everything that we do,” said Spreitler. “Our first priority is making sure that the animals have water, and so we are kind of prepped on that end, but like I said, it is kind of the aftermath of we don’t have dishes; if we can’t get them clean, our laundry gets really far behind, and that can impact us for up to a week if we are not able to kind of get up to speed, if we don’t have the extra help to get us through that.”

In January, Tennessee Ridge was left without water for over five days. In a city of over 600 residents, their only water source was a 6,000-gallon non-potable water truck parked at City Hall.

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“A lot of our people up here are retired people…elderly people that can’t pick up a five-gallon bucket of water to pour in a toilet to flush their toilets,” Tennessee Ridge Mayor Stoney Odom said. “It’s getting in a bad situation up here.”

“You have to come up here to get drinking water, so that should tell you what’s going on,” added RC Williams, a Tennessee Ridge resident.

That same month, Giles County Schools closed amid a water outage that lasted for days. Elementary school employees spent hours handing out breakfast, lunches, and water to students instead of teaching.

“We’ve had a lot of parents calling,” said Dr. Vickie Beard, director of schools for Giles County. “They’re worried about hygiene issues, medical issues for some of our students. They’re really concerned about what that would mean if we do try to have school and they don’t have water at their own homes.”

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The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) explained that much of Tennessee’s infrastructure is over 50 years old.

“Infrastructure only ages, right? I mean, like every year it gets another year older, so we build new stuff, and then that makes our system bigger,” said Monica Sartain, assistant professor of civil engineering at Lipscomb University.

According to the ASCE, Tennessee has an infrastructure report card that sits at a ‘C.’

“I think when people see a ‘C,’ they think about, ‘Well, if my kid came home with a ‘C,’ how would I feel?'” Sartain explained. “But a ‘C’ for our report card means that things are operating okay; we are not having any serious problems.”

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The ASCE estimates it will cost $8.7 billion to maintain and improve Tennessee’s drinking water infrastructure over the next 20 years.

Sartain said it is a much-needed expense for infrastructure that is decades old.

“It is great to see expansion and our thriving economy. We just have to make sure that we take care of our infrastructure to help support all these people that are moving here,” Sartain said. “With adequate funding, we can help plan for the future. We can do things maybe with artificial intelligence to help us determine when, predict, like, if the next water main break or things like that so that we can be proactive instead of reactive.”

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