From Rindi White in Wasilla:
A old steel water line cracked beneath South Alaska Street, sending a geyser of water up through the pavement Tuesday night and leading city officials to close the street until the line is fixed.

Palmer Public Works Director Carter Cole said it might take a week or more to fix the problem. For now, traffic is being diverted around the break.

Over the weekend the busy four-way intersection at Alaska Street and Evergreen Avenue will be closed down so a city crew can lay new pipe for a permanent fix.

Cole said work being done just down the street on Blueberry Avenue didn't cause the leak, but it is sort of related. The city has for several years been replacing old steel water lines with new ones of thicker ductile iron, he said. As new lines are added, the pressure on the old pipe increases and sometimes, as in this case, the old pipe fails faster than the city expected it to. The water line on Alaska Street was scheduled to be replaced in three years.

Old lines in the city are an ongoing problem. Cole said the city lost 300,000 gallons of water on the day the leak sprung. That's as much water as some cities hold in reserve water tanks. Cole said the city's leaky water system loses almost that amount every day. The city plans to do an extensive leak survey later this year to find out just where all the water is escaping, Cole said.

In addition to improvements repairing the section of water line that failed, Cole said the city moved up its plans to repair other old water line sections on Alaska Street to next year. He plans to use a $2.8 million grant from the state to do both this repair and next year's work. So look for more road construction on the city's main drag next summer.