Pipe Repairs, Bursts Rile Residents

The jackhammer is not Eagle Rock’s official bird, but lately it has been heard on Colorado Boulevard—at night.

At 10 p.m. this past Sunday, Department of Water and Power crews began repairing a rusty, 86-year-old water pipe under the boulevard—and the resulting noise appears to be giving some residents sleepless or unpleasant nights.

Eagle Rock Patch received an e-mail from at least one such resident, who wrote shortly before midnight on Tuesday that she could “hear jackhammering right now, plus I heard it in the night last night.”

In the e-mail, which was also sent to the owners of several leading businesses along the Eagle Rock Boulevard-Maywood stretch of Colorado where the repairs are currently underway, the resident clarified that she had attended a public outreach meeting about the DWP repairs but that she could not recall whether there was any mention of nighttime work.

Added the resident in a subsequent e-mail: “It would have been nice if there had been some outreach to the neighborhood. It's really hard to sleep with jackhammers going for hours.”

Our local at Eagle Rock City Hall informed Eagle Rock Patch that a total of three meetings were held regarding the DWP repairs over the past 12 months or so and that the issue of nighttime work was discussed at those forums.

Daytime Work Slated

“All the businesses impacted were informed, and we actually received positive feedback from them,” CD 14 Northeast Area Director Zenay Loera told Eagle Rock Patch, adding that after the repairs stretching to Maywood are completed, all further work until Loleta Avenue will occur during normal daytime hours, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

“The work at night was suggested and voted on during this community process as the best way to avoid serious traffic impacts around the busy intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Eagle Rock Boulevard,” Loera added in a follow-up e-mail. “Both residents and businesses in the impacted area were again notified last week of the official start date of this project.”

The repairs are the second phase of a larger project that began in December 2008, when another aging water pipe burst on the north side of Colorado Boulevard and Townsend Avenue, Loera said. “People went without water for several weeks and at that time we asked the DWP to look at the other areas that may need maintenance so that a [pipe] rupture doesn’t happen again.”

In twin incidents eerily reminiscent of December 2008—not to mention uncannily concurrent with the second phase of the DWP repairs—a pair of water pipes on the north and south side of Colorado simultaneously burst around 10 p.m. on Sunday night.

The ruptures, which occurred on the 5200 block of Highland View Avenue and on the south side of Grandola Avenue near Townsend, left about 100 homes without water for hours. Highland View was partially flooded, and water also seeped into several residential front lawns. On Grandola, some 40 homes were affected, including one whose entire front yard and garage was inundated with water.

A resident on Highland View Avenue whose front yard was among those damaged by the flooding said this was the second time that there had been a major rupture of a water pipe in the area in about five years.

Slow Road Repair

"Last time the street damage caused by the water—a huge gash and buckled asphalt where I normally park my car—was never repaired, despite frequent calls to both DWP and street services," he told Eagle Rock Patch via e-mail. "Luckily it eventually was covered over by a regularly scheduled slurry resurfacing. We’ll see what happens this time."

Since Monday morning, Eagle Rock Patch has called and e-mailed the DWP several times to inquire about the possible cause of Sunday’s pipe bursts. We have yet to receive an explanation. (During our more recent communication with the DWP, we were told that a media representative would respond by the end of Wednesday.)

“They haven’t returned my call either,” CD 14’s Loera told Eagle Rock Patch.

Stay tuned for any further updates.