Respond to and repair the Wyndham Street main break

You are a network maintenance operator on the Reyes crew.

Simulated workplaceEntry missionCAQA ClearFlow Water

What is going on

A priority 1 break on the 150 millimetre cast iron main in Wyndham Street has been logged by the control centre with water across the road and 38 properties likely to lose supply. The crew arrives to find water flowing from a circumferential crack, a bus stop and a cafe within the exclusion area, and the utility plans showing a telecommunications conduit and a gas main nearby. The excavation will be about 1.7 metres deep. The main will be open for several hours and there is a sewer in the same street. The Networks Manager expects the procedure to be followed step by step and the records completed before the crew leaves site.

Kirsty Blackwood, Networks Manager
Subject: Water main break reported, Wyndham Street

The control centre has just logged a priority 1 break on the 150 millimetre cast iron main in Wyndham Street near Fryers Street with water across the road and 38 properties likely to lose supply. Jordan's crew is on the way and you are going with them. Follow the Water Main Break Response and Repair Procedure from the first report back to the control centre through isolation, excavation, repair, disinfection and return to service. Make sure the excavation permit is raised in the Permit to Work Register before anyone goes below 1.5 metres, and record the residual and sample before the main goes back into service.

Your brief

Respond to the break with the crew, report to the control centre, isolate the main with the smallest customer impact, excavate safely under permit, repair the main, disinfect and return it to service with the required residual and sample, and complete the work order and permit records.

Work through it

You do not need to do it all. Doing a few of these will show you what the work is like. Your ticks and notes stay on this device.

Read the Water Main Break Response and Repair Procedure and the Occupational Health and Safety Policy section on high risk work, and list the controls you must have before anyone breaks ground.
Update work order WO-26-4410 in Network Work Orders to On site and record the report back to the control centre within 15 minutes, including the number of properties affected and the isolation plan.
Identify the valves to close from the network plan, describe how the control centre notifies affected and critical customers, and record the valves closed on the work order.
Describe how you locate and pothole the telecommunications conduit and gas main, and raise an excavation permit in the Permit to Work Register with shoring, traffic control and access controls stated.
Describe the repair method for a circumferential break in cast iron, how the open pipe ends are protected from contaminated water and how the pipe is flushed before the final joint.
Describe the disinfection of the fittings and the recharge and flush, record the free chlorine residual on the work order and explain why a bacteriological sample is required in this case.
Enter the sample in the Water Quality Sampling Register with status Awaiting result and notify the water quality team as the procedure requires.
Complete the work order with cause, material, method, residual, samples and time supply was restored, and close the excavation permit.

My notes: what did I enjoy, and what surprised me?

What someone in this role would produce

Pre-excavation controls checklist
Updated work order with isolation, repair and return to service records
Excavation permit in the register, issued and closed
Water Quality Sampling Register entry

Printing this is a record of what you explored. It is not a certificate or a qualification.