[Durham INC] Broken Sewer Main and Goose Creek

[Michael Brooks]

If you've ever visited Rome, you can drink from fountains (or visit 
aqueducts) which have 2,000-year-old clay pipes still carrying pure 
water. Equally old sewers still function, too, although often I think 
those are clay tiles, since the technology didn't exist then to make 
such large pipes. 87 years old? Just barely getting started (as long as 
there isn't an earthquake or a war).

I haven't looked, but I'm sure there are even older examples of 
perfectly-functioning baked clay water and sewer pipes in places like 
China, which thought about those things much earlier than Europe.

Mike
On 8/31/2012 10:35 AM, Will Wilson wrote:
> Yowzers! (perhaps biased, perhaps not)
>
> http://www.ncpi.org/GreenStandards.asp
>
>
> "Service Life
>
> Of course, lifecycle and durability are a critically important 
> component of the actual environmental, economic and social impact of 
> any product.  This has always been one of the strongest arguments for 
> specifying clay pipe.  While some manufacturers make wild claims about 
> the theoretically possible lifecycle of their products, only clay pipe 
> has a demonstrated performance history on which it can be judged.
>
> The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers assumes a one hundred year service 
> life for VCP while the Canadian National Research Council/Institute 
> for Construction Research estimates that service life at 132 years.  
> We believe these estimates are very conservative.  Terry Martin, 
> Seattle Public Utilities, projected an expected service life of the 
> clay pipe in his system at between 300 and 400 years in a paper 
> presented at the ASCE Pipelines Conference in 2008. "
>
>
> Will
>
> On 8/31/2012 10:27 AM, John Martin wrote:
>> Hi Folks,
>> A couple of days ago an East Durham resident, Kate Demayo, noticed 
>> black sludge in Goose Creek near East Main St. and reported it.  It 
>> turns out that a sewer main had broken a few blocks away and raw 
>> sewage was being discharged into Goose Creek. I want to thank her for 
>> reporting this.  If she hadn't done this, no one knows how long this 
>> pollution would have continued.  I also want to thank city officials 
>> and staff for responding very quickly and dealing with the problem.
>> There is a larger issue, however:  the condition of our sewer mains.  
>> We all know that when Tom Bonfield came to Durham, he expressed 
>> dismay at the condition of our streets.  To his credit, he took 
>> action to pass a bond measure to repair our streets.  But neither he 
>> nor most of the rest of us can see our sewers.  I worry that they may 
>> need similar attention.
>> Therefore, I posted several questions on the list serv about the 
>> sewer main that broke:
>> ) How old is this particular sanitary sewer main?2) When was any 
>> maintenance last done on it?3) When was it last inspected for 
>> possible leakage/breakage issues, and how was that inspection carried 
>> out? I'd like to thank Councilwoman Diane Catotti for passing these 
>> questions to staff for answers.  I'd like to thank Bill Miller for 
>> his prompt answer: According to our database this sewer main was 
>> installed in 1925 and is 8” VCP (Vitrified Clay Pipe) and was last 
>> serviced on 6/17/05 when it was cleaned and CCTV’d.
>> While, I appreciate the quick answer, I hope I'm not the only person 
>> disturbed by the answer.  It seems to me (and I freely admit that I'm 
>> not an expert) that vitrified clay pipe that is 87 years old has to 
>> be near the end of its useful life.  If we don't take steps to repair 
>> and replace now, we will pay a higher price later, both monetarily 
>> and in terms of ecological damage.
>> I'd very much like to hear the views of people more knowledgable 
>> about this than I am.
>> John Martin, PresidentInterNeighborhood Council of Durham
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>