11/07/2017
For Immediate Use

Major upgrade work for Pleasant Point water underway

Work on the major upgrade of the Pleasant Point water system is progressing well, and Timaru District Council is thanking residents for their patience during the improvements.

Between now and 2022 major upgrades and renewals to water mains throughout Pleasant Point will ensure a better, more resilient water service as well as significantly reducing water wasted through leakages.

Work on the Manse Road section of the project is complete, with mains replacements in Miro Street, Afghan Street and Kabul Street in progress.

Grant Hall, Drainage and Water Manager at Timaru District Council said that, while they are trying to keep the disruption to a minimum, it’s a major piece of work and there will be unplanned outages.

“We’re progressively replacing the old and failing cast concrete piping with more modern and resilient PVC pipes, as well as extending the capacity of the network so that we can work on the system without closing down whole sections of the town supply” he said.

“The replacement work itself is identifying many of the issues with the older parts of the system, the vibrations from the digging and cutting of the pipes may be causing the older sections to fail, leading to unexpected water outages.

“While we can give notice of planned outages to water services, we can’t tell in advance if a certain part of the older system will fail prematurely. If anyone finds that their water is out unexpectedly we’d ask them to contact Timaru District Council customer services and we’ll get it fixed as soon as possible.”

Loss of water and low pressure caused by leakages was beginning to be a problem for the town. The well draining soil conditions in Pleasant Point, where water rarely surfaces as it would in other places, made it difficult to identify where the problems were.

“Through an audio survey of the town water supply, where we literally listened for leaks, system failures at some of the pipe joints and junctions were found.

“By replacing these now it means that we’re conserving more of what is a precious resource as well as ensuring the system can continue to provide the water needed at the right pressure for fire fighting purposes.”

A new half million dollar reservoir for the town is also being built this year, which will ensure the town has a significantly larger reserve of water on hand in case of any supply issues or emergencies.

Details of planned closures and worksites will be published in the weekly council noticeboard and on Facebook.

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