What Caused 3 Water Main Breaks Within 5 Days?

Written by Jasmine

The city of Rochester has been experiencing some water main failures recently, three within five days to be exact. All of these breaks happened near the downtown area, but what is the cause?

This past Wednesday, a water main on East Avenue near Winton Road broke, causing major traffic disruptions. Due to that portion of East Avenue closing for repairs, traffic had to be routed through Wegmans parking lot, and the Country Club Diner had to close a few hours earlier than normal.

Next, a water main broke on St. Paul Street the following Friday near the RTS Transit Center, in the middle of RUSH HOUR. RTS buses had to be rerouted to get to the transit center, causing even more traffic than usual.

Finally, and again on East Avenue, another water main broke near Main Street this past Sunday. Luckily, there is usually less traffic through the city on Sundays.

City of Rochester spokesperson, Carlet Cleare states, “So the one on East Avenue by North Winton Road was caused by a contractor who hit a fire hydrant, which built a surge of pressure in the main line […] the other two […] one was on St. Paul by the RTS bus station. That was caused by changing weather conditions, as was the one on East Avenue and Stilson Street.”

Hopefully, this will be the last of the water main failures for this year.