Posted: 4/17/07
City council wrestles with broken water meter issue
By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
Mr. and Mrs. Bob Buege, 210 East Adams Street, have a mystery on their hands. Theyíre trying to figure out where 91,000 gallons of water went.
The Bueges attended the April 9 Caledonia City Council meeting to discuss a somewhat perplexing issued that cropped up when they were on vacation. According to city water/waste water superintendent Tony Klug, the Buegeís water meter froze during a cold spell in February, when they were on vacation. The bottom portion of the meter cracked, causing a major water leak.
When Klug changed out the broken meter, it indicated a usage of 12,134 cubic feet (91,005 gallons) of water, which was nearly 10 times the Buegeís normal usage. According to city staff, the Bueges had been using approximately 1,300 cubic feet of water per three-month quarter.
The water meter is located in a 5 1/2 by 11-foot concrete root cellar. Buege explained that the door to the root cellar fits very tightly, there are no cracks in the concrete floor, and there isnít a floor drain located in the root cellar.
"I did the math on the amount of water the city claims ran through the meter," Buege said. "With that size room, it would have filled it 26 times." But when the leak was discovered and the door to the room was opened, there was only about two feet of water that came rushing out of the room, according to Buege.
Klug provided the council with a copy of the pumping hours at the cityís waste water lift station that services the neighborhood the Buege home is located. From Feb. 14 through Feb. 19 the lift station had a drastic spike in gallons pumped through the sewer system - an extra 18,000 gallons per day. As soon as the water in the Buege home was shut off and a new meter put in place, the lift station pumping hours went right back to the normal daily average.
Klug maintained it was more than a coincidence the lift station numbers would indicate an additional 108,000 gallons during the same period the area experienced the cold snap, which caused the water meter to freeze and rupture, and the day the broken meter was discovered and repaired, the amount of water pumped at the lift station dropped back to normal levels.
"I just donít understand where all that water could have gone if that much water leaked out of the broken meter," Buege contended. Buege asked if another home in the neighborhood might have experienced a broken water line or meter during the same time.
No water line breaks or frozen meters had been reported, according to city staff.
"We donít have to settle this issue tonight," Mayor Pro Tem Paul Fisch said. "We can have Tony check to make sure no one else had a leak and once we have current meter readings in, we will know if someone else had a problem."
The council took no action, and instructed Klug to check the other meters in the area serviced by the lift station.
Caledonia Argus
314 West Lincoln St.
P.O. Box 227
Caledonia, MN 55921-0227
507/724-3475
E-Mail: editor.argus@ecm-inc.com