The Woodward News

Local News

July 28, 2010

New Early Childhood Center not damaged by water leak

Michelle Seeber Woodward News

Woodward, Okla. — A water leak that was discovered at the Early Childhood Center early Monday morning did not do any damage to the newly constructed school building.

According to Assistant Superintendent Tom Fisher, workers reported the leak around 6 a.m. shortly after they arrived because water was running over the concrete in the parking lot.

The leak was located on the south side of the building next to a water hydrant, Fisher said.

According to police call logs, someone called in the leak at 6:38 a.m. Monday, asking for the water to be shut off.

Ed Laird, city water superintendent, said the on-call water crew was called out and responded quickly to situation.

"My guys were on the spot and did an excellent job," he said.  "They were out there before working hours taking care of business."

While neither Laird nor Fisher could say what caused the water line to break, Laird said, ""the way I understood it, the plumber was tying in the sprinkler system, tying the service line into the main (water) line, hooking everything up and something broke on our side, so we had to shut the whole thing down to fix it."

Howard Davis, construction manager at the ECC, said the city had come out last Thursday or Friday to put in a meter for the sprinkler system.  However, he said it appeared the seal wasn't tight enough.

"The water pressure blew the seal out," Davis said.  "All they had to do was shut off the water and replace the seal.  It was easy to fix."

“And a couple of hours later it was fixed,” Fisher said. “It caused no problem to the building because the water runoff plan worked perfectly. It all drained into the retention pond.”

Fisher said the retention pond was made to help prevent flooding during a hard rain, such as the one on Sunday.  He said it works because as water runs off the concrete parking lot, it then drains under the ground through pipes to the retention pond located north of the parking lot, which slows down the volume of water as it then flows out to the bar ditch.

Laird also credited his men and their fast reaction to limiting any potential damage.

"If the on-call guys hadn't gotten there when they did, it (the water leak) could have eventually washed out the yard out there," Laird said.  "But they were so quick on response, they saved it from washing out."

"And now it's all fixed and going good," he said.

Since city water department employees fixed the leak, Fisher said there was no cost to Woodward Schools for the repairs.



Assistant editor Rowynn Ricks contributed to this report.

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