ODESSA, Texas — Water issues have been plaguing the city of Odessa for years now.
Just a couple weeks ago, a boil water notice was issued after a water line broke.
Now, City Manager John Beckmeyer has come up with a plan to tackle the mounting water issues.
“What we've done is we've gone and - with our finance department - we've searched through different bonds and different accounts," Beckmeyer said. "We've come up with the money to be able to do 171 of these valve replacements and do these two major water replacements and repair and replacement projects.”
One problem: the water infrastructure is severely aged. Many water valves and pipes are over 70 years old, making them difficult to work on without making another problem.
"Many of these valves are just that old. They just flat don't work. They're either broke, open or closed," Beckmeyer said. "When one's broke open, you can't get it closed to shut off the water. When one's broke close, then it changes the pressure on the system because water is not flowing through that area anymore."
When the city can’t work on the valves, they can't isolate them, which means they can’t properly fix them.
“The problem is with our valves, we can't isolate them because so many of them haven't been worked on," Beckmeyer said. "They haven't been exercised, which is opened and closed in over a decade. Some things just don't work anymore.”
The valves aren’t the only thing getting replaced.
Water main lines on both Lancaster and 42nd Street are getting repaired as well, but the valves need to be fixed first before the pipes.
“Whenever you replace a file, then you can isolate pipes. If you have a pipe in the ground and you have a break in it, you can shut off the valve on either end of that break," Beckmeyer said. "Then you can isolate that break, you can cut it out, put a new piece of pipe down and bring it back up without affecting near as many people.”
Fixing valves and pipes is a good thing. However, Beckmeyer acknowledged that there could be other challenges that could stem from fixing the infrastructure.
“One of the big challenges is going to be traffic," Beckmeyer said. "They start on major thoroughfares and we'll have to shut traffic down and lanes and different sections while we take the pipe out of the ground and go back down with it.”
“We'll start with some of these within the next month to month and a half with some of the valve projects because they're not as major as far as getting engineering and all you've got a valve in a location," Beckmeyer said. "You take it out and you put another one back in.”
The main water lines will be worked on over the course of next year while both projects will have a projected cost of around $24 million dollars.
The plan will now be placed on a city council agenda for it to be further discusses. There, it will be decided whether or not the city will go through with Beckmeyer's plan.