By Terry Witt – Spotlight on Levy County Government

             Work crews restored water to Bronson Thursday after removing a patch that was used to temporarily fix a water pipe broken when a backhoe cut into it the day before.

            The asbestos water pipe that runs underground in front of the new Hardees/Jiffy Store gas and food plaza at the traffic light in Bronson wasn’t shown on the city’s grid map that identifies underground city utilities.

            It was hidden from view.

            Mayor Robert Partin said the town was forced to bring in a contractor to restore water flow to the town. He said the company working on the Hardees/Jiffy store commercial project will “end up paying for it.”

            Partin was told the contractor said the underground pipe wasn’t marked.

            “That’s to be determined yet,” Partin said. “We got to figure all that out. We’re just getting to the preliminaries right now.”

            Much of the town was left without water Wednesday when the pipe was first broken and patched and again on Thursday when the patch was removed and replaced by something permanent.

            Partin said “just about everybody” in town was without water when the water pipe was out of service.

            Months ago, the town hired the Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, Inc., (SERCAP) a 501(c)(3) company, to conduct a study to find all the town’s water pipes and valves but the study isn’t finished. The company apparently has already located all the sewer pipes.

            Partin acknowledged that the city has numerous areas where water pipes and valves aren’t shown on the grid map.

            “This place has got so many situations where (water pipes) were abandoned. A charged line is just there and don’t go nowhere. That’s what causes the problem,” he said. “That line (the one that broke Wednesday) is charged, it’s just not on our grid system. I don’t know how to tell you other than it’s having a pipe going nowhere. It’s abandoned.  They did not cap it years and years ago and most of this stuff we have no knowledge of; that’s exactly what happened yesterday, nobody knew it was there.”

            Partin said it’s the same problem with water valves. Many are hidden from view. He said finding water pipes and valves isn’t like locating an electrical line. With water pipes, experts have to hunt to find them.

            “With the new pipe they put in today they have an electrical wire they put on it. In the old days, they didn’t have that. By gosh, it’s like finding Easter eggs. When you find one you can fix it – hunt and dig, hunt and dig,” he said.

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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt January 20, 2022; Posted January 20, 2022