Water Pressure Woes Soon To Go Down The Drain…
Scott Brown, BPNA Board Member
May 20, 2006

As most of you have observed (and have probably been affected by in some way), the City of Tampa has been in the midst of new water line installations on many of our streets. Recently, I spoke with Roger Aughton, the designated Engineer Technician for the projects. He told me that the City has designated four projects for our Ballast Point area.

The first project was installation of new 2" water lines for Nichol, Jules Verne, Crescent, Tyson and West Lykes streets and is scheduled for final completion near the first of May. Some of these streets are already connected to the new service at this time.

Project No. 2 is a 16" water main extension from Himes Avenue to Bayshore Boulevard. This project is also in the final phase and should be complete around the first of May.

Projects No. 3 and 4 call for installation of larger water mains and spot upgrades of water lines in the area near Trilby and Macdill Avenue, 2nd Street from Interbay south, and Elberon south of Bay Street. This project is underway but is not as far along as Projects No. 1 and 2.

Dallas One Contractors was hired by the City to complete the work. The projects involve boring new flexible underground water lines underneath the roadways and/or City right-of-ways, with stub-ups next to the existing meters. The contractor then pressure tests the lines, and chlorinates the water before connecting to the water meters.

From personal experience, I can tell you that on Sunday evenings on numerous occasions, we were unable to take a shower in the evenings because of the flow reduction area lawn sprinkling caused to the old water lines serving our street. In many instances, the old City water lines were over 40 and 50 years old, and were corroded inside to the point that very little water flow was transported. When everyone watered their lawns on their designated day, it drained the available flow to our homes, and in our case, we could only have one faucet running at about half pressure. As I mentioned, showers were out of the question.

The good news is that notwithstanding some potential aggravation with having the blue hose sticking up in your yard and the boring machine making a mess on your street, the new water lines work. I hope that your experience with the new water lines is as positive as ours has been. Life will be much better with real water pressure.

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