On Wednesday, October 9, there was a 20” water main break at the Water Plant on Cherry Road in York County. It was repaired around 1:00 AM this morning, with the water plant coming online around 3:00 AM. Although 125,000 customers have been affected with around 30 million gallons of water spilled, customers are now seeing service restored.
There is a boil water advisory now in affect all throughout York County. Monitoring and testing is being conducted per The Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) standards. Results from water sample tests require 24 hours notice from DHEC. Once DHEC states that the water is safe, the boil water advisory will be lifted. The water boil advisory will go through Friday, October 11 and may be extended according to test results.
Throughout today, as more water is produced to fill the distribution system, water pressure will increase. Field crews will be flushing hydrants to get the sediment out. The elevated water tanks will likely start to be filled this afternoon.
Mayor John Gettys’ states, “This was not worker negligence. This was not contractor driven. This was not anything other than an old pipe that has been under the ground since 1949 and had outlived its life. For the past 20 years, the City of Rock Hill has been continuously investing in its infrastructure. We are trying to get ahead of the curve with all of these pipes that are underground and have been for quite some time. This pipe is scheduled to be out of service 18 months from now. The work that’s ongoing on the back of the water plant now, and the line that was built on Eden Terrace a year ago and is online, takes this line out of service. In 18 months from now if this happened, this would not have been a problem.”
Mayor Gettys’ continues to emphasize the importance of investing in infrastructure and says, “This is a real world example of why it is so important that we pay to get that infrastructure underground, above ground, wherever it is throughout our system, so things like this don’t happen.”