Construction may have been behind Friday rupture in Auburn water main

A blown water main disrupted service to an Auburn business and caused some Auburn residents to have dirty water coming out of their faucets Friday.Pacific Gas & Electric crews excavating parts of Auburn Folsom Road to install a new natural gas pipeline may have disrupted a nearby water line."A 12-inch water line on Auburn Folsom Road ends right around where they were digging," said Brian Martin, director of technical services for the Placer County Water Agency. "Maybe because of the soil conditions, the thrust block was loosened and the line blew at the end there. But (PG&E) didn't dig into it."A thrust block is a chunk of concrete on the end of the pipe that reinforces where it bears up against the soil, he said.Tom Reeves, deputy director of field services for PCWA, said the blown pipe only affected the complex at 500 Auburn Folsom Road. A valve further upstream was shut off and another line will service water to the business over the weekend, Reeves said. Crews were working Friday to pour a new concrete thrust block on the busted pipe."That won't be up until Monday," Reeves said. "We want to give it plenty of time to dry so we don't have any more problems."The break caused some rusty-colored water to come out of faucets and toilets in the neighborhoods around where the main was shut off."People may have got a little bit of turbidity in their water," Martin said. "What happens is water flows one direction and when you have a situation where the end of a pipe opens up, high velocities of water scour whatever is on the inside of the pipe that's always there. It's not a health danger."Karen Randall saw the deluge of water sheeting down Auburn Folsom Road on her way to work Friday morning."It was just a flurry of kind of muddy water," she said. "You couldn't tell where it was coming from, it was just all this water. There wasn't even a spurt. Visually, it was a really different thing to see on the way to work."The Journal's Michelle Miller can be reached at michellem@goldcountrymedia.com.