The Mary Rhodes Pipeline is expected to be fully back online by Sept. 26 — roughly a week after a 17-foot section of its 101-mile length failed.
In a Sept. 25 message to the City Council, City Manager Peter Zanoni described the final steps of restoring the pipeline, to include exterior cement work and additional backfill to ensure “the pipe is fully embedded prior to the increase of pumping to full operation.”
The pipeline was at that point being used to convey about 23 million gallons of water per day to the San Patricio Municipal Water District and steel manufacturer Steel Dynamics, according to the message.
The San Patricio Municipal Water District is a wholesale customer of the city of Corpus Christi, distributing water throughout the county.
The pipeline was expected to be at 72 million-gallons-per-day capacity by the morning of Sept. 26, Zanoni wrote.
The Mary Rhodes Pipeline had been offline since at least Sept. 20, when a leak was discovered about halfway along its route, according to officials.
It has been furnishing as much as 70% of the city’s water supply each day, sourced to Lake Texana and the Lower Colorado River, and has been credited with carrying Corpus Christi through the water crisis earlier this year.
At the time of its breakdown, Lake Corpus Christi was about 85% full, a dramatic difference from the roughly 8% capacity during the worst of the drought.
City officials had increased releases from the Wesley Seale Dam and expanded pumping volume from the Nueces County groundwater wells to help bridge the gap when the pipeline went out of service.
It’s not known yet what caused the failure, according to Zanoni.
The city’s engineering consultant, HDR, “will be analyzing the failed pipe section, soil conditions, cathodic protection protocols, and gas pipeline infrastructure that is over the pipeline to develop a potential cause for failure,” he wrote in the Sept. 25 message to the Caller-Times.
Kirsten Crow covers city government and water news. Have a story idea? Contact her at kirsten.crow@caller.com.
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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Crucial water pipeline expected to be back online Sept. 26
