37 HYDRANTS OUT OF SERVICE PENDING WATER LINE REPLACEMENT
Published on December 2, 2004 Author: Barbara O'Brien - NEWS SOUTHTOWNS BUREAU © The Buffalo News Inc. U-Crest volunteer firefighters hope that no one else has the chilling experience of tapping into a hydrant in front of a blazing house and finding a low water flow. "You've got the pressure, but once you start using it, you don't have the volume," Fire Chief William Graczyk said. The Erie County Water Authority does not want that to happen, either, and has taken 37 hydrants in seven communities out of service. After the fire on Chapel Avenue in Cheektowaga in August, the Water Authority checked the flow on all of its hydrants that are connected to 4-inch water mains. That is when it found 37 hydrants with flows below firefighting standards. "We're going to take them out of service until we replace the lines," said Brian A. Gould, public affairs officer for the Water Authority. The Water Authority has notified the municipalities and fire districts about the hydrants and has told firefighters of the closest working hydrants. "We are confident that adequate fire-protection services are available," Robert A. Mendez, executive director of the authority, told supervisors and mayors in letters last week. It was Aug. 10 when the Randal Budzilo home on Chapel Avenue caught fire. No one was home at the time. Firefighters hooked up hoses to a hydrant near the home and then discovered the flow problem. Dispatchers told them that the next hydrant was out of service, and they eventually hooked up to hydrants across Union Road. The home was destroyed in the fire. After the fire, town officials said they believed that the older 4-inch line was not providing sufficient flow, speculating that corrosion and the buildup of minerals had reduced the functional diameter of the line. Testing had determined that the pressure was adequate. Water Authority crews tested the hydrants on Chapel and all the hydrants that were connected to 4-inch mains. There are about 21 miles of 4-inch water mains in the authority's system and 15,000 hydrants hooked up to mains of various sizes systemwide. There are 17 hydrants out of service in Lackawanna, eight in Cheektowaga, three each in the City of Tonawanda and West Seneca and two each in Amherst, Depew and the Town of Hamburg. The authority stopped charging the annual hydrant fee for them and will not reinstate it until the affected water mains are replaced. Gould said design and engineering will be undertaken in the next year for a replacement program to start in 2006 and be completed in 2007. The lines connecting to the 37 hydrants are to be replaced in that program. If funds become available next year, lines, including the one on Chapel, would be replaced sooner, Gould said. The authority spends about $4 million a year replacing lines, based on criteria such as the number of leaks and complaints and the size. Since the Chapel experience, the authority is giving higher priority to replacing the smaller 4-inch lines, Gould said. e-mail: bobrien@buffnews.com