Icy blast keeps Saskatoon crews scrambling with water main breaks

The cold snap over the holiday season took a toll on Saskatoon's water mainsystem.

Russ Munro,director of water and waste stream for the city, saidthe combination of a sustained cold streak and minimal snow cover kept city crews scrambling to deal with broken pipes.

"There's a couple of different challenges we can see when we get particularly that extreme cold temperature and then there's very little snow cover," he said.

"What that does is that allows the frost to penetrate very quickly because the snow, as much as we don't like it on the roads and things like that, provides a bit of insulation."

During the cold snap thatblanketed Saskatchewan that week, temperature highs often hovered around the30 C mark. It wasn't until Wednesday that temperatures rose to warmer, more seasonal temperatures.

"What we can see is frost reaching some of the water mains, and that creates a ground shift. When the ground shifts, Mother Nature tends to win."

Munro said crews were called to 16 breaks over the five days of extremely cold weather. And, for the first five days of the new year, they've been called out 13 times.

"We're seeing a higher number per day than we would usually see in the wintertime. We would expect one to two per day," he said.

Crews responded to 250 breaks in 2017. Munro said thatis on par with the long-term average, but higher than the average of about 180 over the past five years.

The extreme cold also has an effect onabove-ground lines, he said.

"Pipes, particularly those on outside walls and things like that, everyone should be cognizant about those and be sure they're staying warm or being heated by the building," he said.