Back to the Pioneer Days for Parts of Ogden City

5,000 households in Ogden deal with no running water during a harsh winter

Although Emerald City citizens have been generally aware of the dilapidated condition of our city's water infrastructure for a number of years, a substantial number of Ogden residents (5,000 households, perhaps) had the opportunity to deal with the problem up close and personal within the past few days, following the failure of an Ogden Canyon water main nine days ago. Here's a re-run of that news on this story:

The Standard-Examiner first reported the water main breakdown story on the morning of January 25, in an article entitled "Third of Ogden out of water".

Although Ogden City public works crews quickly responded to the site of the leak, we learned on January 26 that the repair remained incomplete, inasmuch as the trench containing the failed pipe and valve had at some point in time been (strangely we thought) "encased in concrete."

The following day, the Std-Ex reported that the earlier-reported "concrete encasement" had slowed the repair project down considerably. It was also in this same article we learned that it wasn't merely the water main which was "rotted out;" the control valve (once again strangely encased in concrete) was apparently "rusty". We also learned that the concrete which had apparently been poured around the leaky valve and pipe was, quoting the Std-Ex article... "an eight foot wall of concrete."

Ask yourselves, gentle readers, why anyone would pour a wall of concrete around a leaky valve in a 36" water main pipe? Never mind. We already know the answer.

It was about this same time that various schools and gyms in Ogden graciously opened up their doors, showers and commodes, for the 5,000 or so Ogden households who were getting a little bit ripe, shower-wise, and might have also needed to use the bathroom -- other than the one in their own back-yard.

Then, on February 1, we were informed by the Std-Ex that the water was back "on," although pipes and valves started blowing out downstream, due to the repaired infrastructure upstream.

How funny. The repaired leaky hardware upstream is increasing water pressure downstream, and blowing out other dilapidated pipes and valves which are also in serious need of repair.

Perhaps Blessed Boss Godfrey will appear everywhere there are leaks, and put his little magic finger in the dyke, heheh.

And then today, the Standard Examiner reports that the water isn't "quite" on yet. Maybe Monday.

We had a couple of thoughts about this; and we were about to wax on about it, until we stumbled upon today's Std-Ex letter to the editor by the inimitable Tom Owens:

Mr. Owens expresses our exact sentiments, in his letter today, with this.

And what say our gentle readers on this topic?