Vehicle mishap results in water main breaking

It was water, water everywhere but nothing from the tap for more than 200 municipal water customers during the rainy day Wednesday. Due to a vehicular accident on Hwy. 21 early in the day, some users had their water cut off for seven hours or so, followed by an advisory to boil tap water before use.

City spokesperson Lauren Volpe said calls about low water pressure started coming into the city’s water/wastewater department between 4:30 and 5 a.m. Crews went to investigate and found tire tracks near the entrance to Gary Job Corps indicating a vehicle “was driving off road and ran over a valve box at the surface that loaded the pipe to the breaking point.”

When those workers cut the water off between 9 and 10 a.m., it mainly affected an estimated 225 customers in the Blanco River Village subdivision, the San Marcos Regional Airport and at Gary Job Corps Center. Volpe said the water came on at Blanco River Village at around 10:39 a.m. but not at Gary Job Corps or the airport until approximately 5:30 p.m. 

Volpe said the “advisory” to boil water was issued for those affected and was intended as a precaution. “This is different from a boil water notice, in which residents would be required to boil water as a result of an incident where contamination is possible or likely.”

The incident didn’t merit reporting to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), she said.