EBMUD Fixes Two Broken Water Mains Thursday

-By Bay City News Service

East Bay Municipal Utility District workers have the upper hand on two water main breaks that affected small sections of Berkeley and Oakland on Thursday, a utility spokesman said today.

The water district's biggest issue was a water main break at 7283 Claremont Ave. in Oakland behind the Claremont Resort and Spa that was reported at about 10 a.m. Thursday, EBMUD spokesman Charles Hardy said.

Although the break was on the Oakland side of the Oakland-Berkeley border, all of the customers affected by the outage were on the Berkeley side, according to Hardy. He said crews initially shut down a 16-inch pipe only to find the problem was in a nearby 30-inch pipe, which they also shut down.

EBMUD turned the 16-inch pipe back on at about 4:30 p.m. Thursday and most customers had service by 5 p.m., although some didn't have service until about 6 p.m., Hardy said. The 16-inch pipe was repaired on Thursday but crews are back in the area today to repair the 30-inch pipe, he said.

However, Hardy said the repair work isn't affecting customers or traffic in the area. EBMUD experienced another problem when a 6-inch main broke in the 2300 block of Dwight Way in Berkeley, near Telegraph Avenue, at about 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Hardy said.

The underground pipe flooded part of the road and workers shut down the water flow about 9 p.m., according to Hardy. He said 16 homes were without water service until the pipe was repaired at about 1 a.m. today.

Hardy said it's unclear whether the recent cold weather caused the water main breaks because EBMUD, which has 4,200 miles of pipe, experiences water main breaks throughout the year.

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