City tries to dry up water woes

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) - Two water line issues kept Dayton workers busy Thursday morning, but officials hope some future fixes will make the breaks less common.

The intersection of Princeton and Rosedale was turned into a small pond by a broken valve, while a water main break sent water rushing into the streets surrounding Tech Town.

"Main breaks are a part of the business," says Dayton Water Department Deputy Director Matt Carpenter. "We see them from time to time. It's part of what our guys do here."

Water officials call the two breaks coincidental, but they had 2 NEWS asking about the condition of the city's water lines.

"We have an older system but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad system," Carpenter says.

But to keep things from getting worse, the city is in the process of a 10-year, $200 million campaign to upgrade some of the water and sewer lines that are approaching 100 years old in some cases.

"We're coming to the end of the first generation of the systems," Carpenter says. "Everybody is faced with this. Dayton is ahead of the curve. Our system is in good shape."

But sometimes even good systems have bad breaks.

Take the water main near Tech Town.

2 NEWS looked it up and found a different section of the same main broke just under two years ago.

That's why the line is set to be replaced next year, but unfortunately it couldn't go quietly.

Even with the replacement pipes, officials tell us they'll never eliminate all breaks, but they hope to see less of them in the future.

"It's something we spent a lot of time looking at and studying and it's about keeping up with the infrastructure," Carpenter says.