Water Main Breaks Keep Hitting Northeast Ohio. Here Is Why

Four water main breaks struck the same corner of Summit County within five days this month, based on Macedonia Police Department alerts, a Sagamore Hills Police report, a Nordonia High School announcement and a firsthand account from a business owner behind Macedonia Commons. The cluster is a local example of a much bigger pattern playing out across Northeast Ohio this year, one that has closed schools, nearly canceled a homecoming dance, flooded a hospital wing and pushed Akron toward a record it does not want. A rough week for Macedonia, Bedford Heights and Sagamore Hills The first break happened late on September 17 on Solon Road in Bedford Heights, near the Interstate 271 overpass. Cleveland Water identified it as a 12 inch main and closed the road while crews worked through the night. Because a sudden loss of pressure can allow contaminants into a system, Macedonia Police sent a Nixle alert the next morning notifying residents of a boil advisory covering Macedonia and Northfield. Twinsburg City Schools closed for the day because of significant water pressure loss in district buildings, and the advisory was lifted later that day once testing showed no contamination. A football game was played at Nordonia High School that same Friday night, and just hours later, Macedonia Police issued another alert early Saturday morning reporting South Bedford Road closed from Highland Road to the north entrance of the high school due to a second break. The timing put that night's homecoming dance in question. The school posted an update confirming the dance would go on. "DANCE IS ON! TRAFFIC PATTERN CHANGE. As you may or may not know, there is a water line break just South of Nordonia High School impacting S Bedford Rd," the school wrote. "After much collaboration and safety inspections, the break has been isolated while still allowing us to maintain water service in the High School." Students were directed to enter and exit through the north drive only while the road toward South Bedford Road stayed closed. A third break opened up behind Macedonia Commons on Sunday, September 20, and grew into something more serious than a typical repair. David Riedel, who owns PostNet in the plaza, described finding a hole in the pavement next to a power transformer. "I saw that there was about a 6 foot deep by 10 foot wide hole in the pavement next to an electricity power transformer, which looked like it was starting to fall into the sinkhole," Riedel said. By Monday the hole had grown considerably, and crews discovered the waterline ran between 10 and 22 feet deep, too deep for their initial equipment. The situation escalated Tuesday when the water department warned the electric company the transformer could fall in. "The electric company immediately cut all of the power to half of Macedonia Commons," Riedel said, with power returning midafternoon. As of his account, the transformer was still being held up by a crane while repairs continued. A fourth break followed on Monday, September 21, when Sagamore Hills police reported a main break at Eaton Drive and Steep Rock Drive in the Eaton Estates development. Cleveland Water was called to the scene, and police asked residents to use caution while repairs got underway. The same pattern shows up across the region This stretch of Summit County is not alone. Akron issued a precautionary boil order in July after a break on Superior Avenue and Leonard Street dropped an elevated tank low enough to cut water pressure for about 10,000 customers on the city's west side. In August, Medina County's Sanitary Engineer's Office spent days repairing multiple breaks around Chippewa Lake before pressure normalized across the service area. Akron's own numbers show how widespread the problem has become. City officials told council members this year that the pace of breaks could push the total past 500, which would set a new record after a year that already topped 400. As of late July, the city had logged at least 345 breaks against a five year average of about 315. A break near Akron General Hospital in February flooded part of the emergency department and temporarily restricted patient visits, and separate sinkholes opened in February and June when aging pipe gave way beneath the pavement, in one case swallowing a parked car. Why so many pipes are failing at once Akron's public service department points to two overlapping causes that show up in water systems across the region. About 35 percent of the city's pipe network was installed more than 90 years ago, and cast iron pipe that old is simply reaching the end of its service life. Construction on the Brittain Road Reservoir has also forced the city to run its system at higher pressure to make up for lost storage, and officials believe that change has shifted old pipes underground and contributed to the recent jump in failures. Engineers point to a related mechanism that helps explain why breaks in a system often cluster close together, as they did ac