High River has plenty of water, but it's leaking out of the underground pipes.

Town Council held a special meeting Monday, June 19, where they voted to add another $1.5-million to the Capital Budget to replace the pipes on one block of 4 Avenue Southeast from 2nd to 3rd Street.

The Director of Engineering for the Town, Riley McKerracher says, 1st to 2nd Street has already been approved for next year but, now it could get done at the same time the block between 2nd and 3rd Streets gets done.

McKerracher says they discovered the leaks in the pipe while doing fire hydrant tests and while these are bad, there may be more out there.

"The concern is, there's actually a lot of other leaks out there that we're not finding," he says. "Because of the age of the pipes, the condition of the gaskets; the amount of pitting and rusting that's in there, there's a protective coating on that, that's deteriorated over the years and so there's likely a number of leaks that we're just not finding because they're not big enough."

He says a large part of that area has pipes that are 80 to 100 years old and will need replacement over the next several years.

Eugene Lund with some of the broken pipes

It's hoped the Town can use money from the Municipal Sustainability Initiative and water and sewer reserves to pay for the work.

McKerracher hopes the road can be dug up starting in late August to early September and the work can be complete before the frost settles in, in the late fall.

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