One of the coldest winters in recent memory is taking its toll on Waterloo Region’s water pipes.
Frozen pipes are bursting across the region, with separate crews battling breaks in Cambridge and Kitchener on Thursday.
The Cambridge break is the more disruptive of the two – due to the need to dig underground, Cedar Street was closed west of downtown Galt, and will likely remain closed into Friday.
Drivers are asked to use St. Andrews Street and Grand Ridge Drive as detours, while pedestrians have shorter detours in place.
An apartment building and townhouse complex in the area are without water until the break is fixed.
A retail plaza is also affected, but water was trucked in to help businesses stay open.
“As soon as I heard about the trouble … I saw my business shut down all day,” Justin Choi, who runs a laundromat in the plaza, tells CTV News.
Choi says his fears of closing down were allayed by the arrival of the water.
In Kitchener, an apartment building on Birkshire Court – near River Road and Lorraine Avenue – was without water for much of the day.
Building superintendent Georgina Bain says about eight inches of water began flooding the building’s parking lot early Thursday morning.
“It looked like Niagara Falls,” she says.
“The pipe was busted, so you could see the water coming through.”
While the water disruption was contained to the one building, officials with Kitchener Utilities say residents across Stanley Park and adjacent neighbourhoods may notice some sediment in their water.
“It’s just iron sediment. Iron’s not harmful,” says maintenance supervisor Peter Pavlinich.
“As the water’s rushing faster than normal, it picks some of that stuff up.”
The burst pipe was located and fixed in time for the water to be back on around 5 p.m.
Pavlinich says it’s not surprising water main breaks occur more often in winter, given what the cold temperatures do to the ground.
“Right now, we’re seeing about three feet of frost in the ground,” he says.
“As frost gets driven down in these temperatures, the ground starts to shift and older infrastructure starts to break.”
