Franklin Regional campus sees 2nd waterline rupture in 6 months

Franklin Regional facilities manager Jim Heck will seek school board approval later this month to replace a fire hydrant near the district’s high school after a six-inch waterline on the campus recently ruptured, the second line to do so in the past six months.

“One was the main waterline to the middle school and we were able to repair that, fortunately, while we were out of school,” Heck said. “If we’d still been in school, we’d have had probably four days without water going to the middle school.”

The latest rupture is of a fire line running behind Franklin Regional Senior High School. Board member Scott Weinman asked if the district’s cast-iron waterlines have been inspected.

“There’s no real way for us to inspect these,” Heck said. “They’re 8 feet underground and they’re tied all the way back to the city waterlines. Until we had water leaking out of the ground, we were unaware that these were faulty.”

Heck said the only inspection option would be to dig up the line and run a camera through it.

“We’d have to shut down all the water on campus to do that, and even then I’m not sure we’d have found it,” he said. “These are very small, but long, splits in the pipe.”

Heck will seek the board’s approval at its Aug. 17 meeting to replace the hydrant near the high school using both district maintenance personnel and Cranberry-based Shipley Bros. Plumbing, at a cost not to exceed $11,000.

The school district, rather than the local water authority, is responsible for the maintenance of its hydrants because they are located on district property and not in a public right of way.

The board will vote on the proposal at its Aug. 17 meeting, set for 7:30 p.m. and streamed online. Watch the meeting at YouTube.com by searching “Franklin Regional.”