Mystery substance baffles city workers

Mystery substance baffles city workers
Robert Monteith
August 28, 2008.
Petersburg, Alaska

Public Works Director Karl Hagerman updated the city council on the Cabin Creek water pipeline recently. The pipeline has been shut down since earlier this year following the discovery that parts of the pipe were collapsing in on itself. Part of the blame was pointed at a growth on the inside of the pipe that made surfaces bumpy enough to reduce flow and perhaps add to the build up of vacuum pressures.

Hagerman told the council that the growth had recently been analyzed by a lab to determine exactly what the substance was made of.

“The lab came back with the finding that it was a nonliving organic polymer waste of some kind. They characterize it as a spent resin from a treatment process,” he said.

Hagerman himself had difficulty believing the results of the test because Public Works did not use any sort of water treatment that would cause a polymer to form. He did, however, say that they were able to determine some key factors from the lab results.

“One thing is that it’s not alive so we can’t necessarily kill it with a chemical and remove it that way,” he explained. “The other thing is that it doesn’t dissolve in acids, bases, or chlorine. We can’t kill it or remove it from the pipe with that kind of chemical addition. We have to remove it with mechanical means, which brings us back to the direction we were pretty much heading with the design to install some kind of appurtenance to pig the line and clean it mechanically.”

http://www.petersburgpilot.com/www/stories/082708pipeline.htm

:shrug: