El Paso Water presents after-action report on Jan. 10 northeast water main break; replacement work under way

El Paso Water on June 23 presented a detailed after-action report on the January 10 failure of a 36-inch water transmission main in northeast El Paso that led to a precautionary boil-water notice and service interruptions affecting tens of thousands of customers.

"A severely corroded pipe had failed," Gilbert Dco, vice president for operations and technical services, said in his presentation. He described the pipe as pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipe — a thin steel cylinder wrapped in prestressing wire that is known nationally to be susceptible to external corrosion and catastrophic failure in some installations.

Dco said the immediate trigger was a routine power surge and breaker trip that occurred during normal pump-station operations. In a healthy section of the transmission main a pressure surge is expected to be absorbed by the pipeline system. In this case, Dco said, the surge encountered a corroded section and the pipe ruptured. Crews then found multiple valves on the main and its lateral connections would not close, which allowed water to continue flowing and caused storage tanks to drain more rapidly than crews could isolate.

"What exacerbated and made this situation much worse was not only that the valves on the main line did not close," he said, adding there are roughly 52,000 valves in the El Paso system and the city exercises them through a contractor and staff program.

El Paso Water reported that service was fully restored by Jan. 15 and that the agency swiftly initiated a metallurgical analysis. The failed segment is under replacement with high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe — an inert, non-corrosive material that will be welded into long, continuous sections. Dco said the contractor is on board, the pipe is scheduled to arrive in late July, and installation is expected to take about 120 days once staged.

The utility outlined short- and long-term steps to reduce recurrence risk: expanded valve-exercise programs with stronger contracting metrics and data collection, line-stop capability for live pipeline isolation, a leak-repair crew that has completed about a thousand small repairs in recent months, enhanced condition-assessment programs for large-diameter pipe, and accelerated installation of digital meters and leak loggers.

Dco highlighted the operational benefits of the digital meter rollout — currently about 88% complete (roughly 193,000 of 218,000 meters installed). Using that telemetry, staff demonstrated simulated maps showing how real-time 'dry' meter codes and green/red meter status will allow the utility to identify impacted customers within hours and to target communications and response.

From a communications perspective, staff said the post-event customer survey showed 80% of respondents rated the overall response between fair and excellent, while 20% rated it poor. The poor ratings most commonly reflected a slow initial map and unclear guidance about water distribution sites. El Paso Water plans to roll out an app by late summer to provide geo-targeted notices and push notifications in future events.

Council members pressed staff about the inventory of similar pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipe in the system; Dco said approximately 200 miles remain and the utility has an ongoing capital program and condition-assessment tools to address and prioritize replacements.

What happens next: The failed segment's HDPE replacement is already in design and procurement; staff expect arrival of pipe in late July and complete replacement by year-end. El Paso Water will continue valve and leak programs and deploy digital-meter mapping to shorten detection and isolation timelines.