Mckenzie:
Hi, folks. I'm McKenzie VanMeerhaeghe, and this is Water You Talking About? A podcast brought to you by WaterOne, where we talk about the ins and outs of all things water. Today we will be learning about what main breaks are, how they occur and what our crews do to fix them. Let's dive into it!
Our first guest for today's episode is Brandon Vallejos. Brandon is a Distribution Technician 2 - 1 and will be our resident expert on all things main breaks. Hi, Brandon. How are you doing?
Brandon:
I'm doing wonderful. How are you?
McKenzie:
I'm great. Thanks. So first I want to get to know a little bit more about you. So how long have you been at WaterOne?
Brandon:
I've been at WaterOne since August of 2019. So going on six years.
McKenzie:
Nice! And can you tell me a little bit about your background?
Brandon:
Yeah. I've been working in the water industry for 14 years now. I worked for the city of Olathe for eight years prior to coming to WaterOne. I worked in the utilities department, which I worked with water and sewer while I was there. But I also served the rest of the community by snow plowing in the winter to also helping out with the, events like the Garmin marathon. It was really the doorway to beginning my career and now hopefully finishing my career at WaterOne.
McKenzie:
Wow, that's amazing to hear. It's cool that you are able to stay in the utility sector and continue to help your community through all different aspects. So what might a typical day for you look like? Is there even such a thing as a typical day in your line of work?
Brandon:
Haha No., every day is different. So right now I actually work in maintenance at WaterOne. So every day is different. Like I said, we could be fixing main breaks to, doing changeovers on construction crews. Which is reconnecting existing water service lines to new water main. We also respond to customer water complaints, like dirty water or low water pressure calls or assisting other crews that are understaffed.
McKenzie:
And what do you love most about your work?
Brandon:
There are two things that are important to me. First, being able to serve the community because I feel like I have a purpose in what I do every day. Knowing that I'm providing a service that is essential to our everyday life as well as my coworkers. They make work enjoyable and fun.
McKenzie:
Absolutely, the people here at WaterOne are amazing to work with, and it is so rewarding to be able to know that the work we do has a direct impact in our community. So let's start off with an important question. What exactly are main breaks?
Brandon:
Main breaks are when an underground water line breaks or cracks, causing water to leak to the surface. They're caused by various reasons, like ground shifting, aging, a pipe corrosion, fluctuating water pressure. Temperature can also play a role. As well as contractor hits from them digging up with heavy equipment.
McKenzie:
Interesting! Yeah. I hadn't thought about that part. It's so interesting to know that there can be so many different things that actually cause a main break. And although they are an inevitable part of operating a water utility, we do all we can to both prevent breaks from happening where we can and to fix them quickly when they do break. So what are the different types of main breaks? Are there different types of main breaks?
Brandon:
Yeah. So, there's some that are called round breaks and lateral breaks. So a round break in our terms, when we're out in the field, we'll call it a shear, and then there's also the lateral, which we would call split, but they're caused by, the ground shifting. So which is more of the round break or shear? And then, lateral. That's sometimes you get like pinholes or a split that runs along the main.
McKenzie:
For those, do they look different on the surface? I know there are some main breaks where it's just like a bubble on the top. And then there's some that shoot up really high.
Brandon:
So like when the, the older the pipe is sometimes when there's like high water pressure it'll cause a hole to burst the water main. And so sometimes you'll see water shooting, sometimes high in the sky. Sometimes it might be like a pinhole or a small leak. And so those will cause more saturation in the ground.
McKenzie:
So how common are main breaks.
Brandon:
They're pretty common, so it really just depends on the time of the year. Sometimes you may fix one. There's been other times where I've fixed 2 to 3 a day. Really just depends on the time of year. Like in the winter times, it's a lot slower. Sometimes it's a lot more busy. So it really just depends. There's no certain amount.
McKenzie:
And we can't control when main breaks occur. Right. So what happens when a main breaks in the middle of the night?
Brandon:
So our dispatch will go out and investigate the leak and see if they need to call in a crew. If they do we have a call this that we go down usually, typically five guys will come in on a normal main break. Sometimes if it's like a transmission main, they might call in more people. But usually we have a board that we go down and don't leave home to come in to work and make the repairs.
McKenzie:
Wow. That's absolutely incredible that we're able to have people that work throughout or are on call throughout the day and throughout the night and even on holidays we'll have people come out because you can't predict when a main is going to break for the most part. So it's really awesome that we have people going out 24/7 on their weekends, on their holidays. It's something that we're super grateful for.
All right. Let's set the scene. It's a hot July summer day. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. When all of a sudden it hits. Water's gushing. WaterOne is called, and it's a main break. Can you walk us through our process for fixing main breaks?
Brandon:
Yeah. So when our crews arrive on the job site, we will usually isolate by shutting off valves, which will put the customers out of water for a little while. But we also will send out a notify for, if they're signed up- Do Notify Joco and they'll get the alert that, hey, you're going to be out of water for this amount of time. So once they have a service, we'll make the repair.
And then once we make the repair, we'll clean the pipe disinfected and flush prior to turning the water back on. And sometimes, like, if we have to replace a certain section of pipe, sometimes it might taste a little funny, but we'll, flush for a long time. And if it does, when people call back in, we'll just run a cold water or, like, flush out of their spigot. Usually we'll do that. But yeah,
McKenzie:
For a part of the main break process, we are actually waiting for locators to arrive. Correct?
Brandon:
Yes.
McKenzie:
Okay. And how long can that take?
Brandon:
Usually they have a two hour response time. Just like us, I mean, we have within two hours to respond to the job, too. So. And sometimes they're not always because, you know, it's in the middle of the night sometimes. Or, locators are busy because they do locate throughout the county, just like we're all around the county. So, yeah, it just depends.
McKenzie:
And their job is to locate all of the other utility lines?
Brandon:
Yeah. They locate power, gas, sewer, street lights.
McKenzie:
Yeah. So it's a very detailed process to fix main breaks. WaterOne has a goal of repairing main breaks within about four hours. Most of that time is slotted for external companies to locate other utilities so that our crews can work safely. We usually will have water back on before that four hour window
In addition to our crews out in the field we do have a dispatch team, which we kind of hit on earlier. Dispatch is responsible for completing a number of steps in the main break process, such as taking call in main break reports, assessing the priority level, notifying a crew, and sending out emergency alerts to employees and customers. These alerts are sent through Notify JoCo.
Notify JoCo is our community's mass notification system. When there is an outage in your area, Notify JoCo can send you notifications so that you stay informed. You can even customize your locations and contact preferences to get alerts at home, at work, and you can receive them however you would like by phone, email, or text. Sign up for free at notifyjoco.org today. This link and all of the links that we discussed in the episode will be listed in our episode transcription and description.
After a main repair, you may see a reddish discoloration in your water. This is caused by small amounts of iron compounds flushing out of the system. These compounds pose no threat to health and are merely unpleasant. You can get rid of the discoloration by running cold water for a few minutes through a tap without an aerator, such as a bathtub or an outside spigot.
Now that we know the technical details about main breaks, I want to hear more about your experiences. So, in your opinion, what is the most interesting part about repairing main breaks?
Brandon:
I'd say the most interesting part of repairing main breaks is you really don't know what you're getting yourself into. You can go from fixing a two inch water line to fix a 36 inch transmission main. So, yeah, it varies. Every day is different. And you never know when you get that call, like what you're going to see.
McKenzie:
So do you have a favorite or coolest main break story that you can think of?
Brandon:
Over the 14 years there's been a lot. One that comes to mind is when I first started working here, we showed up with and it was kind of crazy because the water had blown a hole at, like a 45 degree angle.
McKenzie:
Oh my gosh.
Brandon:
Yeah, but there's been so many more. I mean, we've had a 20 inch line break, which, that was, that was in an apartment complex and kind of blew the doors off and flooded multiple apartments. And that was a pretty big deal. I mean, we had multiple crews out there for that and took a couple of days actually fixed. So yeah, there's pretty I mean, it just varies. It's crazy.
McKenzie:
Yeah. And then if you could let the community know one thing about your job, what would it be?
Brandon:
I think for me personally, I think just what goes into what we do every day is crucial. I mean, we take it for granted. You turn on your water every day and or, you know, be able to flush the toilet, but just how extensive and important like our role is. I mean, a lot of people just see, you know, firefighters and, and what they do. But, I think we play a vital role in to making sure, you know, fire hydrants work. So that they could do their job. You know, so. And then, you know, we use water every day for everything.
I think it's important, especially our guys in distribution, you know, coming in in the middle of the winter or fixing leaks and stuff like that. So, yeah.
McKenzie:
Absolutely. It's a big reason why we wanted to do this podcast in the first place is we wanted to shine a light on the work of people like you, who oftentimes that work goes behind the scenes, and it's a good thing sometimes that it goes behind the scenes because we're not trying to actively disrupt our community, we're just trying to help them as smooth as possible. But we still want everybody to be able to see that there's so much that goes behind just being able to turn on the tap and you guys are a large, large part of getting that there. So we want to be able to highlight you, highlight your stories and show the work that you guys do for our community.
Brandon:
I just appreciate you guys having me. And this was awesome.
McKenzie:
Of course. Well, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come on the podcast and talk with us about your job. It is so insightful to have someone on here who works with main breaks every single day. Your expertise is really valued.
*Music interlude*
All right. Now that we know all about the main break process, let's look into what happens after the main break is repaired. At WaterOne, we are dedicated to ensuring that disturbances to the ground that occurred while repairing water infrastructure are corrected. Joining us today to talk about how we do this as restoration contract coordinator, Steven Andersen. Hi, Steven. How are you doing today?
Steven:
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on the fun.
McKenzie:
Yeah. Thank you for being here. So I want to learn a little bit more about you before we dive into restoration. First off, how long have you been at water one?
Steven:
I have been at WaterOne for roughly two and a half years.
McKenzie:
Nice. And can you tell me a little bit about your background?
Steven:
Sure. After graduating college with the business degree. I started my career in data analytics at a Kent City based company, and after a few years, I moved on in search of a new industry with more opportunities to be out in the field and a role focused in project management. That included more interaction with people that ultimately landed me here in the newly formed restoration group at WaterOne.
McKenzie:
Awesome. And what might a typical day for you look like?
Steven:
My day is essentially oriented around making sure that WaterOne cleans up all of its messes. My day is usually about a 5050 split between field work and office work. And when I'm in the field, I'm visiting job sites where water one or contractor crews were out working, to determine scope and make sure that our outcomes are great for our customers. When I'm in the office, I'm typically working on assigning restoration jobs to our contractors, managing contracts, or talking to our customers.
McKenzie:
So when you're out in the field looking over jobs that WaterOne has done, what are some things that you look for there?
Steven:
What we look for on the restoration team is any kind of disturbances that were caused from our work or our presence there. So we're looking for landscape damage, pavement damage, any kind of damage to property like driveway, sidewalk, decorative landscaping, irrigation, all things of that sort.
McKenzie:
And what do you love most about your work?
Steven:
I like how versatile my role is. Each day is just so different for me, and when I come in in the mornings, I get to decide what's the most important for that day and I get to do those things. So no day is the same and each day is usually a surprise.
McKenzie:
Yeah. That's great. Before we get into the weeds of restoration, can you give us a brief overview of what it is exactly?
Steven:
Sure. As I had kind of mentioned before, restoration is essentially cleaning up all of the disturbances that come from WaterOne's field work. Oftentimes they're caused by excavation with our machinery, or it can be from water runoff during main breaks or distribution main replacements, depending on the project type and the severity. Our cleanup can range from just a little bit of grass seed to, complete road resurfacing. It just depends on, how the how the events take place.
McKenzie:
So you work with a lot of external entities for your work. Do you coordinate with the cities for things like repaving and such?
Steven:
Yeah. So, the restoration team is actually mostly an outwardly facing group at WaterOne, just because WaterOne specializes in making sure water gets to our customers. Well, what we don't specialize in is repaving roads, redoing yards and grass, or making sure that we meet city standards. So that's really what our team does. We work with the city right of way coordinator's quite frequently, and then also our paving and landscape contractors to make sure that we're putting things back to the way that they were before we got there, and also that we're meeting the requirements set forth by the city.
McKenzie:
If anyone needs to contact you, they can do so by visiting waterone.org/restoration or by email at restoration@waterone.org. This link and all other links mentioned in our episode will be in the description and transcript.
All right. You briefly mentioned public right away. Can you explain this a little bit more for us?
Steven:
best way to describe the public right of way is that it's a specific area of land or property that's set aside and managed by the city, and it's dedicated to public infrastructure. Oftentimes it's used for roads, sidewalks and in-ground utility distribution systems like water, sewer, stormwater, natural gas, power and fiber. As homeowners, we sometimes don't realize that the things we use daily like water for our showers, gas for our stove, and fiber for our wifi need to physically connect to our homes.
Enter the public right of way. The designated area can be misleading from above ground, because it may appear to be a normal part of some of these yard. When in reality it's an underground highway for utilities that serve, every person's residence.
McKenzie:
Yeah. It's so interesting to know that below their surface, there's so much, like you said, an underground city of just things that connect to people's homes. It's really cool to see.
Steven:
It is. And sometimes you can get a sneak peek of that when you're either driving down the road or on a walk. You can see various paint or flag colorings that are on the ground. Those identify buried utilities, and there's a whole color coding system that's actually kind of fun to learn that way, when you're on a walk, you can you can figure out what's there, but there are a lot of things that are buried that we just don't see during the day.
McKenzie:
Yeah, absolutely. And how long does it typically take to restore someone's property?
Steven:
Well, that is the million dollar question and a conversation that I have very frequently with all of our customers, and honestly, one that I'm still searching for. So I can be a millionaire, obviously. The only correct answer that I can give is that it depends. And that is just because our restoration schedules depend on the scope of work and many external factors like seasonality, crew availability in day to day weather forecast. Specifically, the cities in Johnson County set forth a number of requirements for restoration in the public right of way that limit the times that we're able to work.
For example, they have hourly restrictions on when our crews can be in the field restoring things. Oftentimes, they will not let us restore things during rush hour or times of high traffic. That way, we're not impeding people's day to day commutes. Also, for pavement restoration like sidewalks, driveways, curbs, roads, we are unable to replace concrete and asphalt when the temperature gets below a certain point. So winter time can be difficult for us to restore things in a timely manner for turf or landscape. We also have seasonal restrictions from the cities that dictate when we're allowed to fully restore things, and those seasons for us are from March to May in the spring, and then again from September to November in the fall. Granted, there are some seasons in some years that are a little different. If we have a mild bit of weather, we can kind of extend some of those if we can, but really we're restricted to six months of the year to restore those. So depending on when the project occurred, your expectations for what you can see from water, what and when you'll see us restored. Things can be different.
McKenzie:
Yeah, that's so interesting. I didn't know that there were so many factors that come to play in the timing of restoration, but I mean, it makes sense. We can't just plant flowers in the middle of winter.
Steven:
That is true in putting down grass seed or sod in the summertime is a very difficult task to do. And it's something that we just, we're just not allowed to do because it's so hard to keep it, to keep it living.
McKenzie:
Absolutely. And can you walk us through the restoration process?
Steven:
Yeah. All in all, I think this is the most important question that customers have when they when they call me. The question is if I'm a homeowner and this has happened to me, there is a main break in my yard or there's a project going on, what can I expect from WaterOne? And what we try to do when we're out in the field is we'll leave a door hanger outlining some of the things that you can expect as a homeowner. That way when you get home from work or you make it home from a soccer game and we've been there, you're aware of what's going on.
First of all, you can be sure that we will coordinate and pay for the restoration efforts of water one, that's not something that our homeowners need to be involved with. We have crews and a team that schedules all of them, so there's no need to be home for restoration when we're there. There's no need to, fret of paying or having a financial burden from that or something that water one takes care of. And when our field crews are completely finished on the job site, the water main is repaired or it's been replaced, they send it over to the restoration group for final restoration. And once that occurs, the restoration team will visit the site and determine the parameters of the cleanup. Oftentimes we use pink paint to determine what that is. So if you see us drawing designs on your driveway, it's not it's not for decoration purposes. It's for our scope of work. And we get that schedule with our contractors. Pavement usually takes a few weeks depending on how busy we are, and landscape will follow the pavement after that, depending on the season.
Landscape timing is pretty difficult to estimate considering we do have very, very small windows to get all of our work done. So unfortunately we enter spring with a pretty big backlog. Likewise with fall. So the three months in the spring and three months in the fall are really just a mad dash for us to get everything done. But we do try to restore things in the order in which they occur. So if your yard was disrupted in January, you can bet in the spring you'll be one of the first to get taken care of. And we try to provide positive outcomes as soon as possible. And we just encourage people if they have events or if they have something coming up where, you know, restoration is really important for them or something's going on. We just we just encourage them to reach out and we'll try to either find an accommodation or take care of things for them before their needs happen.
McKenzie:
100%. It's so good to know that we have put so much thought into our restoration process, and that we make sure that we're doing it in a way that leaves the best outcome we can. We really try to put customers first at WaterOne, and I feel like our restoration process highlights that We hear you, we see you. It can be frustrating and we want to make sure that we get things back to normal as soon as possible. For you. Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Steven:
I would just like to share that our goal is a restoration team. It's just really to provide quality outcomes for those who we interact with. And we strive for those who we do interact with to have a positive experience. So if something happens in your yard, it's very likely that you'll be talking with the restoration team. And we try to make accommodations as we can and deliver in a way that's satisfactory to you. We know our work, when we're in the field sometimes can be a surprise. It can be a disruption. It can it can affect your day to day, you know, pulling out the driveway or accessing your house in your neighborhood. All these things kind of disrupt our customer's routine. And we know that's inconvenient. So we do try to get things put back as quickly as possible. We have hundreds and hundreds of projects each year, so it can be tricky to divvy up our time accordingly, but we are always available to discuss thoughts or concerns over the phone or via email. We try to make decisions in the best interests of those we serve, and appreciate any patience and understanding that people are willing to give.
McKenzie:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Steven. It was great to have you here.
Steven:
You're welcome. It's been fun.
McKenzie:
Yeah, well, that's all we have for today. If you are interested in learning more about main breaks, you can visit waterone.org/mainbreaks. If you are interested in learning more about restoration, you can visit waterone.org/restoration again, both these links and all others mentioned in the episode will be available in both the episode transcription and description.
Our next episode will be all about customer service. We will sit down with one of our amazing reps and learn about what they do, how we work to help our customers, and we will even answer your commonly asked questions.
Thank you for listening and I'll talk to you next time on Water You Talking About?