Raw water line creates issues for schools, hospital and industrial plant

Feb. 14—A water situation in the city of Milledgeville created havoc for the Baldwin County School District, the local hospital and an industrial plant on Monday.

The Baldwin County School District cancelled classes at every BCSD school on Monday. The water issues also resulted in the cancelation of all outpatient surgical procedures at Atrium Health Navicent Baldwin hospital on Monday. Water pressure was so low at the Zschimmer-Schwarz, a local industrial plant that operations were affected on Sunday and Monday.

"The hospital had to completely cancel all surgeries Monday because the affected water problem feeds their whole Park Tower area, and without that water intake, they cannot do anything from a steam standpoint of sterilizing equipment and other things," said Milledgeville City Manager Hank Griffeth.

The city manager told the newspaper Monday afternoon that repairs had been made and that as soon as water pressure had built back up, normal operations were expected to resume at those entities.

"The valves were opened back up earlier this afternoon (Monday)," Griffeth said.

He said he had sent hospital officials an email letting them know the situation.

Griffeth also said he had emailed Baldwin County School District Superintendent Dr. Noris Price and members of the Baldwin County Board of Education to let them know that repairs had been made.

"I explained to them that the water pressure should be building back up soon," Griffeth said.

The city manager said hopefully a second day of disruptions of school classes had been adverted. BCSD issued an update Monday afternoon stating that classes were slated to resume system-wide on Tuesday.

Although repairs have been made a boil water advisory was issued late Monday afternoon.

The advisory will likely be in effect for the next 24 hours. Bottled water will be provided for students at Lakeview Academy and the Early Learning Center, as well as the board of education offices.

The process of examining water samples was expected to begin Monday night.

Griffeth said the school district, hospital and industry are the only entities affected by the boil water advisory.

"The BWA was issued simply because the flow of water stopped completely," Griffeth said.

Unlike previous water woes where water main lines ruptured, the problem was different this time.

"This problem involved a raw water line," Griffeth said. "It was originally installed to take water from the (Oconee) river over to the water treatment plant at the old J.P. Stevens Building when they had their own treatment plant."

When city officials took that over a number of years ago, the raw water line was turned into a treated water line.

"When raw water lines are installed, they put pressure-relief areas at the lowest points in order to be able to let sand out and all those kinds of things that the get in from the river," Griffeth said.

The raw water line is a 14-inch line.

"But what blew off was the pressure relief piece on a four-inch line," Griffeth said.

The smaller line connects with the larger line, he said.

He said once workers with the engineering company were able to get in there with the height of the creek, it should be just aa matter of taking that four-inch line off and then making a determination to whether or not that particular line is actually feeding anything.

Griffeth said Robert Hadden, the city's water-sewer superintendent, doesn't believe that line is actually feeding anything.

The city manager said when the mishap occurred Sunday afternoon, it started shifting water into Tanyard Creek, which runs along Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

"The good thing about it is they were able to isolate it quickly and we didn't have a situation where it drained all the water tanks like it did six weeks ago," Griffeth said.

He said there was some low water pressure in the Stevens Drive area, as well as areas along Cobb Street, which runs alongside the hospital.

"But we think that's just a residual issue from this, he said.

Griffeth said workers from Fortis Engineering Company in Eatonton were at the site of the problem working for several hours.

The city manager said it could take a little longer to fix than initially thought.

"We've been staying in constant contact with all of the entities affected by this," Griffeth said. "I had conference calls with all three of those major entities this morning between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. to let them know what was going on."