Water is back on in Truth or Consequences after a “perfect storm” of issues led to a city-wide water shutoff on Monday.
On Monday morning, crews became aware that a water tank was sitting at a low level. After inspecting the tank, crews realized that a pump to the tank stopped working.
After learning this information, Gary Whitehead, City Manager for Truth or Consequences, instructed the city to conserve water while the pump was being fixed.
A couple hours later, construction crews working on a different water project struck a main water line that was marked incorrectly and had troubles shutting the valve to that line. This caused water to continue to leave the tank with the broken pump.
“This is about 1:30pm yesterday and I made the decision to shut down the main water tank, the big tank, because it was low. It was already down from about five feet to about 2 feet. I made the decision to shut that off so that the water would stop flowing from the broken pipe,” Whitehead said.
Whitehead continued by saying that at least 75% of the city had water all day.
After repairing both the broken pipe and the pump, water was returned to the city at around 5pm according to Whitehead. Schools remained closed Tuesday due to a precautionary decision made the day before.
This incident comes as the city has been struggling with aging water infrastructure. The city has secured $50 million in state funds to help modernize and update much of their system.
“The city is in a major reconstruction. We are spending about $50 million this year doing water projects. We had four major water projects that were going on so construction will be continuing for the next two years,” Whitehead said.
While some construction has been paused to buy time to refill the water tank, Whitehead said that construction will continue later this week.
