Fannin Water Main Fixed

After a long night’s work, Blue Ridge City Water Dept. has the water main fixed. As of 5:00 a.m. the city started turning back on the valves and pressure checking the system.
FYN spoke with Foreman Shannon Payne on the night’s events. Payne stated, “The leak was found a little after midnight. We replaced a section of the 8 inch PVC main to fix the problem. After replacing the pipe, we started pressure checking and turning on valves around 5.”

He would go on to state that a couple of days prior the city had been looking for a slow leak in the system. After a while, the slow leak became a massive one when the main broke late last night.

Once the city knew they had a massive leak, they started asking for help to try and find it. Local police along with fire and rescue began riding the roads looking for any signs of water. The leak would be found in the wooded area in front of United Community Bank on Hwy. 515.

Water Supervisor Tim Hawkins said, “With the water running into a thick-it, it took awhile to find.” He would go on to tell FYN that they could tell there was a leak by looking at pressure gauges and city water tank levels.

With such a large main line leaking, it drained the 500,000 gallon water tank to 15-20%.
According to Mayor Whitener, the city of Blue Ridge uses 600,000-700,000 gallons of water a day. Hawkins would let FYN know that it would only take up to two days to refill the tank. He is still trying to figure out how much water was lost through the broken main. He would say that all of the water lost would just go into natural runoff.

FYN will keep you up to date as more information becomes available. We are still waiting to hear from the mayor who was up during the situation last night.