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Frozen water lines and hydrants are still plaguing Jasper.
The operations department has been battling frozen lines all winter but there are still 12 hydrants in town that need to thaw.
Director John Greathead told municipal council Tuesday the long cold snap this winter was “definitely a test for our staff that put great care and diligence into maintaining services.”
Greathead said his department has been working with the fire department to identify the frozen hydrants and thaw them out so they can be operational.
“Luckily we are finding that a lot are going from the main flow to keep them going,” he said.
Greathead said around 811 Patricia Street there are three frozen hydrants so the department is “strategically looking at that” and is bringing in a contractor coming from Hinton “with some magic way to thaw water mains through hydrants.”
He said, more or less, that he’ll believe it when he sees it.
Another issue this winter has been water being cut off to homes from frozen lines.
Greathead said there have been some repeat offenders, with one person needing their pipes thawed three times because they kept turning the bleeder off. He said the motivation was water conservation.
“It takes a lot to get people to cooperate and understand water needs to be running,” he said.
Coun. Helen Kelleher-Empey asked why running lines between houses had fallen out of fashion.
Greathead said running a waterline from a neighbour’s house is “incredibly poor practice and not recommended” because the hose might affect the safety of the water, and there’s no way to eliminate the possibility of contamination from, for example, an improperly connected dishwasher in the originating home.
“If you’re going to do a temporary connection you have to go from source, it’s quite the process,” he said. “Tapping from one person’s house to an individual can be acceptable, but as a municipality you should not be doing that.”
