What happened Thursday could have been much worse. And it was no surprise. The water main break that threatened to contaminate the whole system, closing schools and hobbling restaurants was a crisis, but it could have happened at any time. The city of Wichita’s water system has been flirting with disaster for years. This time, the failure of a power pole’s insulator, one of the most common, cheapest and most reliable parts of an electrical system, was the trigger point in a cascade of events that broke a corroded, 52-year-old water main near downtown Wichita. A 2017 assessment found 99% of Wichita’s water treatment plant was in poor condition and the entire raw water pipe system was in very poor condition. The Eagle reported in 2019 that Wichita’s entire water system has a “significant risk” of failure and lacks redundancy, meaning if a major asset fails, it can’t be fixed without shutting the whole plant down.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
