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Water line work means outage for some in city

STEUBENVILLE — After enduring three water line breaks in a four-day span, residents of Lexington Drive and Whitehall Place will be without water for several hours Monday as crews work to replace a section of the water line where the problems have been happening.

Water Superintendent Jim Jenkins said the outage will begin at 7 a.m. Monday and last “to the earliest possible time water can be restored to the area.” Jenkins said they hope to have the water back on within four hours, but that depends on how the work progresses.

Even after water service is restored, however, residents will have to boil their water.

“We had two recent line breaks (on Lexington Drive) within 15 feet,” Jenkins said. “We fixed it the second time in the middle of the night — we couldn’t replace it at that time. We need to replace that section of the line.”

Line breaks have been a problem throughout the city, but Jenkins concedes “some areas are worse than others.”

“This area actually saw three breaks in four days, one of them on Whitehall Place but the other two were on the Lexington Drive line,” he said. “It’s in the West End, and the West End water system is known to have some issues. Pipes in the West End were fabricated at a time when metals were not as strong … so pipes are not as strong as they should have been. In that area, the lines are a little weaker than they should be.”

Jenkins said several projects on the drawing board would alleviate some of the pressure, “one of them being the West End water tower project, rehabbing the current tower and investigation into building a second water tower.”

Jenkins said the city has had six or seven line breaks to date this year.

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