Irrigation service restored in Kennewick after Weekend Outage - KEPR 19

Irrigation service restored in Kennewick after Weekend Outage | KEPR

Kennewick Wash. — KENNEWICK, Wash. - After several days of no irrigation service for people in the Badger Mountain area, the utility became available once again Tuesday, May 30.

According to workers from Badger Mountain Irrigation District (BMID), a water break on a 14-inch main pipe occurred Friday evening causing irrigation service to be halted for around 900 customers over Memorial Day Weekend. While the water break, which was the biggest the irrigation district has seen this year, didn't lead to any crop deaths or drinking water issues, there were multiple factors for why the fix took nearly four days to complete.

"We worked over the weekend to get it fixed. The crew (said) took a while to drain and the crew did everything they could to try and get it on over the weekend but without having the proper parts and all the water out of there and drained off we could quite get it back on until this morning," said Colby Getchell, the District Manager for BMID.

Getchell noted that water breaks similar to this one shouldn't be a continuing issue as the company has a program to replace water lines throughout the district to make them new and updated

Although the line is up and running, Getchell advised patience to customers as it could take until the end of day before full water pressure is restored to all irrigation devices