By Tom Siebens*
February 1, 2025
The Break
On Christmas Eve, at around 5:00 p.m., the entire West End of Fishers Island lost water service due to a break in the trunk main that supplies water from the island’s reservoir at Top-of-the-World on the East End. It was our biggest main break ever.
An aging pipe was the cause of the break. The broken pipe was over 100 years old and made of cast iron, a material that degrades underground over time via a process known as graphitized corrosion, resulting in structural weaknesses. Freezing and surface ground heaving were not factors because the pipe was eight feet underground.
Service was restored eight hours later, thanks to quick action by Chad and Craig Mrowka, Chris Finan, Kenny Ahman, Mike Conroy, Harrison Hall, Steve Head and Matt Larson. They worked into the early morning of Christmas Day under freezing and at times dangerous conditions. Jane Ahrens posted regular status updates on fishersisland.net late into the evening.
Luckily, the Christmas Eve break was discovered quickly and occurred at the Barlow Pond pump house, a spot where it was uniquely possible to by-pass the break. Chad and his crew worked long days again on December 26 and 27 to eliminate the by-pass and restore water flow to the high lift pumps. The pumps boost water pressure to the West End in the event of a fire and in high season.
No health risks resulted from the break. The Water Company, working closely with the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, issued “boil water” notices, as required by law after a main break lasting several hours, and disseminated them to residents with the help of various organizations on-island. Chad Mrowka tested the water repeatedly on-island and provided water samples that were driven to Long Island where the Department of Health opened its laboratory over Christmas to test them. No contamination was detected.
The Solution
Replacing the first four miles of trunk main, including where the break occurred, is the first step in our plan to systematically replace all 22 miles of the island’s water mains. This first section supplies the entire mains network.
The estimated cost to replace four miles of trunk main is $9.0 million.
Sources of funding for this project are being considered. For example, the Water Company has an application pending for funding under a program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The process will be slow, given the regulatory approvals required; we could have funds to initiate construction in late 2027 allowing completion of the project in 2028.
Accelerating the timeline would be possible with alternative sources of funding. Efforts to identify such sources are on-going.
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* Tom Siebens is a director of the Fishers Island Water Works Corporation which provides water services on Fishers Island, New York. The Corporation is regulated by the New York State Public Service Commission and is privately owned by Fishers Island Development Corporation and Fishers Island Utility Company, Inc.
