The Water Main Break Clock:

For The United States and Canada

On average in the United States and Canada there are 700 watermain breaks per day.*
Water, a valuable commodity, once sent from the filtration plant is at the mercy of the pipes carrying the water to your tap. Any break exposes your safe, clean drinking water to danger.
The next time you see a work crew replacing another broken watermain, think twice as to whether your government is allocating enough money to the infrastructure to ensure your safety.

Since January 1, 2000, an estimated watermains have broken, costing dollars.**

Since you have been on this page more watermains have broken in The United States and Canada, at a cost of Dollars.

---

Additional Sources of information:

* Corrosion Not Age is to Blame, Jim Lary, Water World June 2000.

** Canadian Dollars, From the National Research Council.

---

Broken main leaves seniors without water

By Louie Rosella, THE MISSISSAUGA NEWS

Feb 8, 2007

A water main break in southeast Mississauga this morning left close to 600 residents, most of whom were seniors, without water.

Region of Peel crews were working feverishly last night to fix the break and hoped to have water restored by late evening or early today.

But, Ric Robertshaw, Director of Operations and Maintenance for the Region of Peel, said if it couldn't be fixed soon, the Region will look at getting another water line into the building.

Duct taped in David Miller's Toronto

By Judi McLeod
Friday, August 26, 2005

Toronto--Usually loquacious summering city politicians had little to say about the horrendous damage caused by the rainstorm that hit Toronto one week ago today.

Water-main woes keep crews hopping and rates rising

from the Globe and Mail

January 29, 2005

It's a cold winter afternoon on Duffield Road, a residential side street in mid-Etobicoke, and the crew from the Bering Street city works yard has a wet, miserable job in front of them. The sidewalk and street are slick with ice and dirty water that has bubbled to the surface from a broken water main. They'll have to shut off the water, dig down to the break, disinfect the exposed area and secure a sleeve over the fracture -- all before suppertime.
More

---

PVC Pipe:
North America's Crumbling Infrastructure: One Solution Found

Of all the infrastructure systems on which our society and our economy depend — including our highways, airports, transit systems, waterways and harbors — probably no system is more important than our water delivery and wastewater handling infrastructure.

More than 264 million Americans rely on some 54,000 community drinking water systems to provide them with a dependable source of clean water. Another 31 million Canadians count on their 5,400 public systems. As our first defense against water-borne disease, these systems significantly reduce sickness and related healthcare costs in our society.

For the full report please click here

Much of Ontario's tap water flows through pipes that are nearing the end of their useful lives, the result of decades of neglect, a report concludes in calling for a sweeping overhaul of the province's water systems.

The province's water and wastewater systems will require more than $30-billion in capital investments over the next 15 years to maintain the safe, accessible and affordable water Ontarians take for granted, the Water Strategy Expert Panel says in a report released Friday.

Without that investment, there will be more boil-water advisories, more flooding and more sewage diverted to rivers and lakes during storms, the report says.

While the situation is not yet urgent, it says now is clearly time for action.

"Collapse is not imminent," panel chairman Harry Swain told reporters at a news conference at Queen's Park. "We have time but not a lot of time to make this right."

The report follows a year-long examination of the province's water system. It is part of the government's response to the tragedy in Walkerton in 2000, when seven people died and another 2,300 were made ill after drinking water contaminated with the E. coli bacterium.

David Caplan, Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal, welcomed its findings.

"This is an important priority for our government," he said. "The decisions made will affect the province's water systems for many decades, and we must take the time to do it right."

The Ontario government appointed the three-person last August to recommend ways to ensure that adequate investment is made, that water rates are affordable and that the systems remain publicly owned.

Mr. Swain said the problem will not be fixed overnight. "It took decades of disinterest and neglect on the part of all of us to create the failures of our present systems," he said.

Both municipal and provincial governments have neglected essential investments in the province's water systems for the past 30 years, the report says. Some systems contain pipes that are more than 100 years old.

Mr. Swain said there is a sense that the Walkerton tragedy is history, an isolated incident. He warned, however, that there could be another Walkerton if many of the aging pipes that transport water from reservoirs to households are not replaced.

The panel's work follows on a report from a government appointed inquiry into the Walkerton tragedy headed by Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor. His inquiry concluded that the town's water had been contaminated by manure spread near a well. He made 121 recommendations and forecast that it would cost $280-million to implement them.

The panel's report says that while Walkerton was the catalyst for many recent changes in the water and wastewater sector in Ontario and across Canada, there is "strong evidence that the status quo is becoming untenable."

The cost of replacing and upgrading pipes would inevitably lead to higher rates for consumers, Mr. Swain said. Residents in smaller towns and rural areas, where water systems are more expensive to operate, would pay higher rates than those in large cities, although there would not be any "huge price shocks" for consumers, he added.

Canada currently enjoy water rates that are among the lowest in the world water, and Ontario's rates are among the lowest in Canada, the report says.

The current stock of water and wastewater assets in the province is estimated at $72-billion. Many of the pipes used to transport water are old and deteriorating, and communities are not replacing them fast enough, the report says.

The investment required to return the system to good repair includes $11-billion for maintenance for existing pipes and $9-billion to accommodate population growth.

In the City of Toronto, half of the water network is at least 50 years old. In some other municipalities, parts of the system date back to the 19th century. In Ottawa, for example, some water mains date back to the 1870s.

The older the pipes, the more likely they are to break, the report says. In Toronto, the rate of water main breaks increased by 22 per cent from 2001 to 2003, it adds. Prince Edward County alone had 200 water mains break in 2003.

The panel makes the following recommendations: