BETHEL – Five hundred Bethel Water District customers who have been asked to conserve water since Aug. 14 could see restrictions lifted by next week.
That’s if everything goes right from now on, John Head said Tuesday afternoon, regarding efforts to replace a failed cast-iron main under the Androscoggin River that was installed in 1889.
Head, chairman of the district’s Board of Trustees, said local contractor Jack Cross of Cross Excavation got the contract to install 440 feet of 12-inch diameter pipe across the river.
On Tuesday, Cross and his crew ran into an unexpected problem, said the district’s consulting engineer, Al Hodsdon of A.E. Hodsdon of Waterville.
Two sections of the ball-and-socket-type pipe were defective, forcing the district to order four more sections from an Iowa firm, Head said.
“Hopefully, they’ll be here Wednesday,” he added.
Once the new pipe is in place, the district must have the new main disinfected, do a pressure test Friday, let the pipes sit for 24 hours, then take a water sample and rush it to a lab for bacteria testing.
“We hope to be back on line by Sunday,” Head said.
In the meantime, the district rented a 1975 Ford fire engine pumper, formerly a Pittston Fire Department truck, from Ron Manwell of Reliance Equipment in Vassalboro.
The firetruck is set up beside Route 2 in a field owned by the Norseman Inn, pumping water from a hydrant through fire hoses across the river, through woods and up a hill to the district’s reservoir.
Assistant District Superintendent Donnie Catlin said Tuesday afternoon that the firetruck was raising the reservoir an inch an hour, or pumping 175 gallons a minute.
Catlin said the district had the level up to 50 inches, but started losing headway when overloaded smaller pumps ceased to operate.
Customers never lost water, but they were and continue to be asked not to use water for washing cars or watering gardens and lawns.
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