water tower

Additional repairs are being made to the water tower in Fort Frances.

Piping used to flow warm water to the top has shown signs of cracking and is being replaced.

Initially, the town has to replace a faulty heat trace line, which caused the water to freeze.

An inspection revealed numerous holes and cracks.

When a new heat trace line was installed, additional cracks were spotted and repaired.

When water was allowed to flow back through the pipe, more leaks were noted.

As scaffolding was still in place from the previous tower upgrades and the high cost to install it afterward, it was decided to replace the piping.

“The risk is very high, given the leaks keep surfacing, that small cracks may be missed until after the tower is completely filled or worse, once the cladding is complete and scaffolding removed,” a report from Administration to council reads.

It will cost the town an additional $106,468.23, above the $175,000 estimated cost to replace the heat trace line.

Operations and Facilities Manager Travis Rob says the new heat trace line has been installed, along with a secondary one, should the initial one fail.

He says there is also a mechanism that will let staff know if the line fails to function.

“On the heat trace controls, there’s actually an indication of a fault. So we have some indication that it’s not working,” says Rob.

“The old heat trace line didn’t have any of that. The only way we found out that there was a problem was (the) signs of a leak.”

The water tower had been shut down for several months last year for crews to make several improvements.

The water was turned back on in early January, around the same time the faulty heat trace line was discovered.