Deep freeze blocks
valley's water lines

An exceptionally deep freeze has blocked water mains, storm drains and service lines around the Chilkat Valley, creating headaches for property owners and borough officials.

“We never had this many freezing problems, ever in the 20 years I’ve been working here,” said water and sewer operator Scott Bradford.

Besides providing and filling water tanks in five homes in Skyline Estates where a plugged main has cut off service, borough crews recently thawed a plugged culvert that caused flooding inside the Parts Place on Third Avenue and thawed drains flooding parking lots at Haines School.

At least four residential service lines are frozen around town and five residences at Covenant Life Center are also without water, due to a frozen pipe. Buildings with low use or where residents have been away on vacation have been particularly vulnerable.

Like a handful of his neighbors on south Skyline Drive, Lynn Hyder has been getting his water from a tank in his garage the borough loaned him. His water stopped running March 6, but the borough water main by his house also froze two winters ago.

 Hyder said the loaner tank has improved water pressure at his house significantly and borough crews have done everything they could to help him, but a long-term fix is needed.

“I’m making it fine, but by gosh, they have to find a fix for this. It’s a little bit unhandy. You have to be sure you have a corner to put (the tank) in,” he said.

 Water operator Bradford said he believes a 400-foot section of the eight-inch water main, buried six feet deep, is frozen. Steam can’t be used to thaw the ice because it would melt the pipe.

As for a long-term fix, options include insulating the subdivision’s water tank, or replacing the frozen section of main with a special, cold-climate pipe that has insulation and built-in heat tape.

Water leaves the borough’s treatment plant at 36 degrees and comes from fire hydrants on Skyline at 34 degrees, Bradford said. The main at Skyline is buried in rock – a poor insulator – on exposed mountainside. “We really don’t know which one is the best fix,” Bradford said.

Returning last week from a recent two-week vacation to a house his family rents on Young Road, construction foreman Les Hostetler found his service line frozen. He’s getting by with a connection to a borough hydrant. “I’ve got 200 feet of garden hose going across the street (but) it all works. We can take showers and do the dishes.”

Hostetler said he has heard many reports of problems this winter due to heaving caused by deep-frozen ground.

Lenny Banaszak, a longtime resident of Covenant Life Center, said a line at the end of the community’s water system froze in recent weeks, and that residents are hauling water to two homes and three cabins. The community’s worship building and other structures are unaffected, he said.

The freeze is the first of its kind for community, occurring in a line buried five feet deep. It’s also in a section of the system that has fewer residents and reduced flows.

Banaszak said well water enters the system at 42 degrees, but the temperature of water in the system has been ranging between 31 and 33 degrees, he said. “It’s going through ice somewhere.”

Theories on the cause of the deep freeze included colder than normal temperatures in February and March, and heavy rains last year that may have saturated the ground, turning soil to an ice block.