Lincoln Park DPW Director John Kozuh
By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
LINCOLN PARK – Watermain breaks during the first weekend in October kept Department of Public Service employees scrambling, as pressure fluctuations from the Great Lakes Water Authority may have caused pipes to break.
On Oct. 3, watermain breaks below power transformers at Kroger, 2060 Dix, drew attention to the importance of thorough site plan reviews, James Krizan, city manager, said.
John Kozuh, DPS director, said on Oct. 2, a watermain break near northbound Fort Street and Kings Highway, (three blocks north of Moran Avenue), was discovered and fixed.
On the morning of Oct. 3, at the Kroger near Southfield and Dix, he said four water main breaks occurred, with one on Philomene Boulevard, one on Cleophus Avenue, and two on the Kroger property, both of which occurred in the immediate vicinity of the electrical transformers.
“With all of that being said, the water department works pretty darn hard, and they got the water in that area and back to Kroger Sunday night about midnight,” Kozuh said during the Oct. 4 online city council meeting. “For the water department it was a very tough weekend, and the water department got everything maintained.”
Mayor Thomas Karnes commended the city DPS employees, acknowledging the difficult job they do.
Kozuh said they are still trying to determine what caused the watermain breaks. He said he checked water pressure fluctuations from the Great Lakes Water Authority, as measured at the city’s feeder pits, and he noticed that there were small fluctuations in water pressure, about 2.5 pounds, when the watermain breaks occurred.
“Part of that, I think, is those 2.5 pound fluctuations were in about 15 minutes,” Kozuh said. “I have requested some information from Great Lakes Water Authority, and I was talking to the Hennessey organization about that, and we are trying to make that determination, but I think a lot of it is boiling down to the age of our water infrastructure.”
He said neighboring communities also experienced watermain breaks, but not as many as Lincoln Park experienced.