All but two of several Ellsworth fire hydrants that were missing or otherwise unavailable last summer have been brought back online, according to a city official.
Two hydrants at either end of Liberty Street, which came under public scrutiny last summer after a house on that street burned down, are still out of commission, the city’s public works director said. But the issue is not with the hydrants themselves — it is with the volume of water in the pipes they are connected to.
“It’s a pressure issue,” Mike Harris, who oversees the city’s public works department, said Monday. “The hydrants work fine.”
The fire department was unable to use either hydrant at each end of Liberty Street — a short residential downtown street just west of the Union River — when fire broke out June 30 in an unoccupied house. They tried tapping into each one but, after encountering weak pressure, instead had to rely on water trucks to bring water to the fire scene.
The house, which was being renovated, was destroyed in the blaze.
The property owner, who lives next door to the house that burned, said last summer that he didn’t think the use of hydrants would have saved the building from being destroyed by the flames, but local fire officials said that the lack of working hydrants on the street remains a concern.
The city’s water department, which owns and is responsible for maintaining the hydrants, has been working to get all of them back into service.
A half dozen other fire hydrants that weren’t working this summer, which include one at the intersection of Main and South streets, near Rooster Brother kitchen supply store, and one near the intersection of Vittum and Boggy Brook roads, near the city’s Demeyer Field sports complex, are now back online. So is another on East Main Street at the end of the driveway to Birchwood Living Center, a residential home for adults with disabilities.
The city also has installed two others at locations that sat unoccupied for a while after old ones had been damaged or removed — one at the intersection of Main and Water streets and another at the corner of State and Church streets.
Overall, the city has roughly 250 hydrants spread out in its urban core.
Harris said the water department has not yet figured out why the hydrants on Liberty Street have low pressure. It could be that an emergency repair using a smaller diameter pipe was made at some point and then forgotten about, constricting the flow of water. It also could be that buildup inside the pipes is restricting water flow, he said.
But finding out where and what the problem is is only part of the equation, Harris said. The bigger factor may be in determining what the solution is and how long the repair might take.
“It’s more of a question of how long it will take to fix after we figure out what’s causing it,” he said.
In the meantime, there are other working hydrants in the neighborhood that might be of use if they are close enough to wherever another fire might break out, according to Reggie Winslow, water department superintendent. One is on Grant Street near the intersection with Main Street. The other is at the corner of Chapel Street and Youngs Avenue, he said.
Ellsworth City Manager Charlie Pearce said the city not only is trying to restore service to all hydrants and to keep them in good working order, it is looking to upgrade or enhance the system with digital sensors. The sensors would alert water department staff when there is an issue with a hydrant — hopefully before any fire breaks out nearby.
The more Ellsworth grows, the more need it will have for “smart” systems that can help city staff stay on top of infrastructure issues that arise, he said.
Elsworth officials want to ensure “that our growing city has systems which guide long term maintenance of capital assets and health and safety needs,” Pearce said.
