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LISBON -- Water is back on in the entire Village of Lisbon after a leak went undetected for nearly 24 hours, leaving about half the town without water on Wednesday into Thursday morning, and the rest of town with low water pressure.
The leak was found early Thursday morning and water was restored between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m., Bill Hoover, chairman of the Lisbon Board of Public Affairs, said Thursday morning. Water was restored to the entire village, with the exception of a small area near the downtown Columbiana County Courthouse, Hoover said Thursday. Water downtown was restored by noontime Thursday, he said.
Columbiana County Commissioner Roy Paparodis said at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday that the courthouse water had just turned on. Prior to that around 10 a.m., he said the County Commissioner's Office was open and the building was open but it was left to the discretion of the individual offices whether to remain open or not.
Hoover said there may be some discoloration in water when flow is first restored, but he encouraged residents to let the spigot run for three to five minutes to clear that out. A boil order remains in effect for all Lisbon town water until the water is sampled, tested, and approved at a lab, Hoover said. All residents should boil their water for five minutes until the order is lifted.
Hoover said he suspected the cause of the leak to be an outdated pipe.
"Lisbon has an outdated infrastructure," Hoover said. "We fix leaks a lot."
The best, and really, only way to detect and fix leaks is to monitor the water pressure going out of the system. When there is a spike, water department employees know that usually means a leak, and then they go out to look for it, piece-by-piece throughout the village.
The cost to upgrade the entire water system would be extremely expensive, Hoover said.
"No one grant could cover it," Hoover said.
At around 4 p.m. Wednesday, Hoover said the location of the leak had been pinpointed to an area on North Market Street between Jerome Street and another cross street.
"They're at it and they'll stay at it until they get it fixed," Hoover said.
Hoover said that crews from the Lisbon Water Department worked more than 30-hours straight looking for the leak and then fixing it.
"All thats left for them to do is get some rest," Hoover said.
Leak Seekers arrived about noon Wednesday and water department employees had been searching for the leak since 4:30 a.m., according to Hoover.
Leak Seekers was also used to find the leak that happened before Christmas.
Prior to Christmas, there was another large water leak, where 100,000 gallons of water was lost per day before the leak was finally found.
"I think this one's bigger," Hoover said.
He said the department estimated between 400,000 and 500,000 gallons of water were lost during the this week's leak and the reservoir, which holds 300,000 gallons, had be refilled.
Hoover said Leak Seekers will send a bill for its services and the department will have to pay out overtime and costs for bottled water, as far as expenses related to the leak.
The leak and the water lost will not impact residents' water bills, Hoover said.
"This is why we do an automatic increase every year, to cover emergencies and things like that," Hoover said. "Their bills will not be affected."
The water outages were not contained to a specific local area so that made it even harder to detect the leak, Hoover said.
Most of the county offices were closed on Wednesday, including the courthouses. Dunkin Donuts had water, Washington Street didn't have water, and parts of Spruce Street and North Beaver Street did not have water.
An employee at the Lisbon Water Department said that about half the town had water with low pressure.
A notice on the Lisbon Exempted Village School District website Thursday morning said that school was cancelled in the district for the day because of the water main break. A worker in the superintendent's office said Thursday that school had been cancelled Wednesday night amid the continuing uncertainty over the water main break issue.
The Lisbon Exempted Village School District School Board was held Thursday.
On Wednesday, the schools were open, according to Superintendent Joseph Siefke. McKinley Elementary had full water pressure and restroom capabilities and David Anderson Jr. Sr. High School had one of two water lines working.
One water line in the front of the school was working and one in the back of the school was not working.
Siefke said that some restrooms and water fountains were closed down in the back of the school.
"Kids just had to walk a little further to the restrooms, that's all," Siefke said.
As a precautionary measure at McKinley Elementary on Wednesday, the water fountains were covered and the village brought a pallet of water bottles to the school.
Siefke did an "all-call" to parents at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning informing them of the situation and saying he thought it was best to keep school open so as not to burden parents with having to find daycare for children.
"We survived this little snafu this morning and hopefully it will get fixed and we'll get back to normal," Siefke said on Wednesday.