Title
Discuss and consider a report on issues recently discovered at the Lake Pflugerville Pump Station and authorizing City Manager to procure services and equipment for the emergency repairs necessary to return the pump station to full working condition.
Summary
On Thursday morning, May 1, 2014, utility staff employees doing a routine check of the Lake Pflugerville Pump Station observed large amounts of water bubbling up through the ground around the building. This pump station pushes water from Lake Pflugerville to the City’s Water Treatment Plant. Without this pump station in operation, the water treatment plant has no water to treat.
The leaks were significant enough that we had to discontinue use of the pump station. To assure that Pflugerville customers had water, we opened and closed valves around the City so that we could serve the entire City with our two water wells. We contacted Manville and they agreed to temporarily suspend taking water from the City under our two wholesale agreements with Manville. They were currently taking 1.5 million gallons per day, which accounted for 25 % of the water we produced on Wednesday of this week. We also contacted the ESD and requested that they avoid any hydrant flow testing or any exercises that would use large quantities of water. We instructed our construction inspection department to ask the city's capital improvement plan (CIP) contractors and subdivision developers to not flush any water lines under construction until next week. By making these requests, we were able to fully serve our retail water customers at this time with well water only.
Significant water was present along the west side of the building as well as in vaults to the south of the building accessing the discharge pipe connecting the pump station to the water treatment plant. Because of the critical role of this pump station to our ability to provide water, we treated the investigation and repair of this facility as an emergency...
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