Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
A fire hydrant at Chicago Avenue and Globe Avenue is one of eight discovered to be leaking in Portales.
PORTALES - Routine maintenance to city fire hydrants has revealed eight are leaking and in need of repair, Public Works Director John DeSha said on Tuesday.
DeSha said it's normal for the city to discover three or four hydrants leaking in a year. Better testing has resulted in better detection.
"They are testing them in a different way, and we are doing what is called a directional flush through town, so they're doing a full open/close on the fire hydrants, and we're finding the ones that have problems," DeSha said.
He said it takes three or four years to test every hydrant in town; when the process is complete, they begin again.
DeSha said the leaks are minute "drip, drip" leaks that result in a loss of about 10 gallons of water daily from each hydrant.
Costs to fix the leaks range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars.
One hydrant on the corner of Chicago Avenue and Globe Avenue will cost taxpayers about $8,000 because the city will have to insert a valve and replace the hydrant.
DeSha said the age of the Portales water system has everything to do with the number of leaks.
"These systems were built in the '30s, the '40s and '50s, and you're looking at a 30- to 50-year lifespan," he said.
"So in the 1980s when it was time to really start looking at changing the infrastructure out, everything was still going along, so everybody's focus was in a different direction.
"Well now we've reached the point where the pipe is failing. It's not that it is bad pipe; it was just never designed to last that long."
