Official: Amelia water break was rare event

Residents of Amelia and Siracusaville don’t have to worry about losing water anytime soon after last week's outage.
“The last time we had a break of this magnitude was probably 15 years ago,” said Brian Tabor, operations manager of St. Mary Parish Water and Sewer District 1.
“The entire pressure system was drained in 40-45 minutes with this last break,” said Tabor.
The main water line for the district had a random stress break in a marshy swamp around the area of La. 182 near Conrad Aluminum Shipyard around 11:30 a.m. Thursday. Water service was restored between 6:30 and 7 p.m. that day. A boil water advisory was issued following the repair and was lifted Saturday morning after confirmation from the Louisiana Department of of Health and Hospitals.
Tabor said that water pressures and the water tower for District 1 are constantly monitored by sensors using Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition software, which tracks different pressure point changes throughout the water system.
“SCADA is very accurate, and we usually see breaks that are small enough to handle in a reasonable response time that would not affect our customers,” said Tabor. “However, every now and then you do see a break that may take longer to handle than others.”
Tabor said old age and infrastructure contributed to the break but the district works to be as proactive as possible. Tabor said that every year, funds are allocated to infrastructure rehabilitation in which improvements and upgrades take place throughout the year.