Some residents in Newcastle had a surprise Monday night when they turned on their taps and saw a muddy river of water flowing from their fixtures.
“It was just after supper when we noticed we were losing water and had bubbling toilets,” said Baxter.
Allan Kendrick, Director of Infrastructure Services, said there was a water break near Newcastle Beach and emergency repairs were completed.
“We had a service leak near the first two duplexes on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 10th Street. There is no shut off valve on it and we had to go in and shut off the main valve to do the repair. When the repair was completed, obviously, we had to recharge the line and it disrupts everything. That is why they had that extremely brown water,” said Kendrick.
Baxter said they noticed problems with her service well before the Monday incident. She noticed disruption in her service as early as Friday.
Kendrick says on Friday the Town of Drumheller was in the midst of its flushing program, and the water break on Monday was unrelated.
Baxter she ran her water for about two hours last night before it ran clear.
“Our main concern was that no one was notified and nobody knew what was going on,” said Baxter.
She said no one told her of the disruption, nor was there a notice posted on her door.
“I understand the water issues, that happens, but to be notified if they are going to shut your water down and you are going to get that kind of water coming down your drain.”
Kendrick said town staff went door-to-door to inform residents of the disruption, and some of the residents were not home.
“Our staff told anyone they could along the line,” said Kendrick, adding the town’s protocol is to leave information at the door of residents that are not home.
“At the end of the day it was a service interruption, we can apologize for that, and the inconvenience. From time to time, these things are going to happen, whether you are the power company or the gas company, the telephone company or the cable company. There’s always something that can happen to the infrastructure to disrupt the service.”
