Local citizen Mr. Leon Cake has expressed concerns about a water pipe which could result in chlorinated water entering the Chase River in a seismic event. At the June 1 City Council meeting, Mr. Cake provided several photographs he had taken of the pipe in question which indicates the pipes have in fact moved since installation.
City engineer Mr. Goodall says: "The existing pipe bridge structure is constructed in such a manor to allow some movement of the pipe. The pipe sits on concrete cradles which have a Teflon type material placed between the pipe and the cradle. This feature of the design enables the pipe to move independently from the concrete cradle to facilitate thermal expansion and contraction and movement during a seismic event. Connected to the concrete cradles are metal straps that fit loosely over the pipe that prevent the pipe from jumping out of the saddle during a seismic event. During a recent inspection of the structure I observed nothing that would indicate unusual movement."
just to clarify this further - leon also mentioned that the white teflon material that has slipped out was about 2" outside of its original position. i wonder what is considered unusual movement; 2" over such a short amount of time seems a lot to me, but perhaps i'm wrong - without knowing for sure, this amount of travel causes me concern about what might be happening.
ReplyDelete