PORTLAND, Ore. — On Thursday, a source at the City of Portland with direct knowledge told KGW the city is working to help those impacted by the massive water main break in Northeast Portland.
The source says they believe this solution will satisfy everyone involved.
The water main broke near Northeast 23rd Avenue and Skidmore Street on March 16. Just last week the city denied 11 tort claims filed against them, saying the pipe break was an accident and not their fault.
Now, they are changing course.
It appears the city will reimburse people for at least some of the damages and lost business. However, we haven't heard exactly what they plan to cover or how.
KGW expects to learn details on Friday about their plan.
RELATED: 'The process is broken': Homeowners demand accountability after Portland denies water damage claims
KGW investigative reporter Morgan Romero also sat down with the head of the Portland Water Bureau on Thursday because it was their pipe that burst. The agency is responsible for about 2,200 miles of pipe in the city.
Romero interviewed director Michael Stuhr before getting word about the city's solution to help home and business owners.
“I've been here 15 years and that's the biggest break we've had,” Stuhr said.
Stuhr said they can't figure out why the 30-inch, 104-year-old cast iron pipe broke, sending millions of gallons of water through streets and flooding a number of homes and businesses. He said they may never know.
“I don't want to try to identify exactly why except to tell you this pipe is brittle and it's prone to break. And that's why ductal iron pipe was invented in the 30s and 40s,” Stuhr told KGW.
It is a four-mile long transmission line – one Stuhr says records show never ruptured before. Although it's a century old, he says it has another 100-plus years of life left in it.
“We use a statistical method to identify failures and there was no reason to think this pipe was going to break," he said.
It took 12 valves to shut the water off. The closest one was 10 blocks away. After about five hours, crews got it down to a manageable level - a response too slow for those taking in floodwaters.
“I think our response was fast,” Stuhr said. “You can't shut this off quickly or you will blow the rest of the main up. So we shut off slowly at a particular rate so we don't create water hammer.”
On average, there are about 200 main breaks yearly in Portland, which the water bureau says is less than the national average. Stuhr said they're bound to happen, especially as infrastructure ages.
“We still get really good life out of our pipes in Portland and we want to extract all of that life. Otherwise we are replacing pipes before we need to and that's a huge cost to our rate payers and our citizens,” he added.
This was out of the ordinary; Stuhr called it a very rare and low-probability occurrence.
“All of us really feel for families impacted in this and we try to operate our system in way to minimize main breaks. They are an inevitable fact of life in water utilities," he said.
But that doesn't take away from the anguish home and business owners are still bearing.