3rd Break Discovered on Cloverland Drive

IRONWOOD, MI - Friday, January 30, 2009 - Jim Kolesar, Chuck Thomas, Rick Alonen, Bill Olkonen, and Sam Fontecchio have a "chaser" on their hands. A chaser is a leak that surfaces in one spot but is actually up or down the pipe in a different place. Because of the frost the leak will surface somewhere else where there is less resistance. The frost was 3½ feet deep on the road edge but continued to get deeper as the crew hammered further into the street. A void appeared under the edge of the North lane of the highway. The crew turned on the water to see which way it was flowing from as they were in a interection where 3 lines converged.

Utilities Director Bob Tervonen told the Chronicle, referring to the leak on US-2, "Their getting closer to it! It's just taking forever to chip through the frost! I mean their chipping and chipping and chipping and their working around a phone line right now!"

Tervonen said the crews have identified the source of the leak, it's just a matter of digging up to it. Then need to be forceful enough to gnaw through the frost, yet careful enough to avoid damage to the phone line below.

"When I stopped there last night, everything was fine. When I got there at ten to seven this morning a third break had occurred. So, I called Ashland and Bessemer, and a few other places to see if they had 12 inch parts onhand, just in case we needed them. Some of the other municipalities generally keep spare parts onhand. I'm waiting to hear back from them." Tervonen said.

"I left there just twenty minutes ago," Tervonen said, "And they were chipping on the other side of the phone line. It's just like chipping into 3 foot thick concrete!"

According to Tervonen there were four frozen service lines on the list to be repaired. Water crews were up all night working on the Cloverland Drive water main. Crews will get to those repairs as soon as humanly possible. When asked how everything else was going Tervonen said, "Everything else is running smooth, but we don't talk about it otherwise it's bad luck!"

Tervonen told the Chronicle that he has been in contact with Ironwood Public Safety, the Ironwood Volunteer Fire Department and he asked the Township to be on call in case of a fire. "I'd rather have too many men on call than not enough," Tervonen said, "I'd rather be safe than sorry in the event of a fire! We're feeding the Jessieville tanks through the backside and I'm not 100% confident of the pressure."

According to Tervonen the pipe that broke was manufactured in 1990. "That's considered new in the water industry, so we're scratching our heads as to why that pipe broke -- why the leak was there! Perhaps it could have been an inferior clamp, I don't know!"

"We're gettin' there!" Tervonen said, "Had this been summertime, the break would have been fixed yesterday!"