PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Aging water infrastructure is an expensive problem for communities across the country and here at home. The American Society of Civil Engineers reports infrastructure issues play a role in water main breaks, which happen roughly every two minutes in the United States.
The cost for infrastructure repairs and replacements amounts to billions of dollars.
At the end of January, the Portsmouth City Council discussed what this means for their city.
Watch related coverage: Will Richmond's water crisis lead to a push for investment in infrastructure?
"We're running around the clock trying to fix this thing. In the last two weeks, we had 22 main breaks. It's unheard of. These guys have been working out there day and night in the freezing cold," Portsmouth's Director of Public Utilities Russell Stevens told the city council on Jan. 28.
Portsmouth's City Engineer James Wright explained that more than two-thirds of the city's pipes are fully depreciated beyond their useful life. Some of the oldest sections of Portsmouth's transmission mains that bring water in from Suffolk date back to the 1890s, and 40 percent of the sewer lines in downtown were installed before 1920, he said.
Wright outlined several of the city's greatest needs. He said Portsmouth needs to be lead-free by 2037 to meet regulations and that the water distribution system, sewer pump stations, and water treatment systems all need work, among other things.
Watch related coverage: Water main break in Virginia Beach highlights problems winter weather can cause
"We know what needs to be done," said Portsmouth City Manager Steven Carter. "We just need some help to get it all done because we can't throw enough people at it and enough money at it to catch up."
To make the necessary system repairs and upgrades, they need funding of $1.9 billion, Wright explained. He said that amounts to just under $127 million a year until 2040.
"What you have outlined here is an elephant. The only way I know to eat an elephant is a bite at a time," said Councilman Mark A. Hugel in January.
This discussion isn't new to Portsmouth or the rest of Hampton Roads.
Watch related coverage: Coastal Virginia receives almost $25 million in federal funding for flood mitigation infrastructure
Jeff Scarano, director of design and construction for special projects at Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD), said HRSD monitors buried infrastructure closely as they transport sewage from localities to treatment plants.
They are on the lookout for leaks.
"In general, when we get a break in our pipeline, that sewage, because it's under pressure, bubbles up to the ground," said Scarano.
"Should people be concerned that there may be a catastrophic event at some point?" asked News 3 reporter Erika Craven.
"No, I don't think so. HRSD, in general, and the cities have been very proactive with buried infrastructure," said Scarano. "We are proactively trying to work on large known defects before they become a problem. However, I will say this: when breaks occur, they are not catastrophic. In general, the breaks that happen here in Hampton Roads on HRSD infrastructure are pretty unremarkable."
Watch related coverage: Newport News Waterworks staffing shortage leads to 6-month leak backlog
Since aging infrastructure is an expansive issue and repair projects can be challenging to plan and budget for, News 3 asked Scarano how necessary projects are typically prioritized.
He said some projects are established with hard deadlines by regulators. Next, they're able to look at the likelihood of failure and the potential impact of that failure to determine the order in which everything needs to be done.
"It's like this pipe is 70 years old. We've done work on it, we know it's lost so much of its integrity, and if it fails, it's near a major roadway or a waterway or it's underneath someone's house," said Scarano. "That would be the risk of failure on the front end and then the consequence of that pipe breaking. All those things factor in."
Cities like Portsmouth are similarly calculating how to address the need for repairs, find the money, and keep an eye on the future.
"As we look at this, nothing we're talking about today is a result of what happened yesterday; it's decades in the making," said Carter. "As we go around now scrambling to get things done and get things fixed, we're putting procedures in place now so it doesn't happen again."
Wright suggested the city make plans to address regulatory requirements, scale projects for affordability, and pursue grant funding opportunities as it moves forward.
