| Ponca City's EZ Valve installation took only three days and had no effect on day-to-day operations. |
The Water Distribution Department in Ponca City, Okla., needed to install three 24-inch valves in its main feed pipeline without service loss. The city knew that if it had a break on the main transmission pipe, most of the city would be without water and fire protection.
The city explored several options. One was a traditional shutdown, but the area would be too great, public notification would be expensive, boil orders would have to be employed, and the threat to businesses caused by lack of fire service could be hazardous.
The second option was line stopping the main, but this proved more costly and more time consuming, taking at least a week. Even then, there would still be customers without water service, and six more excavations would be required due to thrust restraint issues.
The Department then asked its main supplier of distribution products, HD Supply (Formerly Water Products), if it knew of a solution for installing the valves without loss of water supply and fire protection.
Since Ponca City's problem pipe was larger than HD Supply had equipment for, the company recommended that Advanced Valve Technologies Inc. perform the service. Consequently, the city decided to install three 24-inch (635 mm) EZ Valves to control the main feed pipes. By installing the valves, the Department could control its water supply with no loss of service or fire protection to its customers.
"There was no effect on their day-to-day operations," said Chris Murphy, the AVT Field Supervisor. "The speed and ease of installation that the city maintenance personnel and the AVT crew were able to achieve by working together was amazing," he said. And it only took three days to install.
The product is an AWWA material specified valve, with the same number of turns as a standard valve, ductile iron castings, EPDM rubber gaskets, and RW gate. It features stainless steel fasteners as standard.
If the city had lost the feed on this line, a large section of town would have been without water, so there was no room for error.
Badger Meter is exhibiting at AWWA's ACE14 expo in Booth 1321.
