Burst water main on Pirie St in Adelaide CBD sends water gushing 20m into air, causes traffic delays

UPDATE: Another huge burst main caused peak-hour headaches this morning, yet Water Minister Ian Hunter has lauded SA Water as a nationally “outstanding” company. VIDEO

• MARION RD: Another day, another spray

AS the toll of Adelaide’s bursting water mains continues to mount on businesses, property owners and commuters, Water Minister Ian Hunter has lauded SA Water as a nationally “outstanding” company.

This morning another large burst main, this time on Marion Rd at Brooklyn Park, caused peak-hour traffic delays while it was repaired.

Our "outstanding" water utility company dealing with another burst main this time on Marion Rd @theTiser #newsADL pic.twitter.com/O50qKPuPTT

— Steve Rice (@SteveRice) May 11, 2016

The burst shot water into the air like a geyser from about 6am for more than an hour, before the flow was switched off.

And on Wednesday, a burst on Pirie St about 5.45am was the third in the CBD in just over a week.

It sent thousands of litres gushing about 20m into the air — higher than Town Hall — and blocked Pirie St to traffic until late in the afternoon, causing delays.

Offices and businesses nearby were left without running water for much of the day while crews repaired the pipe.

The Pirie St burst prompted calls from Opposition infrastructure spokesman David Pisoni for SA Water to front a parliamentary committee. He reiterated those calls this morning, saying Water Minister Ian Hunter needed to “get his head out of the clouds”.

But Mr Hunter yesterday labelled Mr Pisoni’s demands “a stunt”, saying SA Water was among the highest-performing water utilities in the country and was doing “an incredibly good job”.

“We have about 4000 bursts or leaks a year, which is about 10 or 12 a day,” he said.

SA Water and SES crews clear rubble from burst main on Pirie St ahead of peak hour traffic @theTiser #newsADL pic.twitter.com/eUqJ4LfTvm

— Steve Rice (@SteveRice) May 10, 2016

“You don’t run a 27,000km pipeline system of pressurised water mains without having bursts or leaks. No water utility in the world does.”

Last Tuesday, a pipe burst on King William St near Grenfell St and caused morning peak-hour chaos.

The next day a water main burst at the intersection of King William St and Currie St and again caused disruption to peak-hour traffic.

A major leak at the corner of Hughes St and King William Rd in Unley also caused traffic delays and left properties without water on Wednesday.

Mr Hunter said SA Water was outperforming the nation in reducing breakages and was ranked fourth for the fewest number of water main breaks in the past six years.

“ESCOSA sets an amount of breaks that SA Water is allowed to have, which is 21 per 100km of pipeline per year,” he said. “Our breaks are well below that — they are around about 14 (per 100km per year).

“We are outstanding in the water utilities in this country.”

The Advertiser in March revealed Adelaide was losing more than 40 million litres of water every day through leaking mains pipes.

Mr Hunter said the number of burst mains had been stable for the past 10 years.

“The figures speak for themselves,” he said. “We happen to be particularly good at keeping a lid on them and having a significantly reduced number of breaks compared to other water utilities interstate.”

Mr Pisoni said he wanted SA Water to release its maintenance schedule for the past five years and next five years, and explain what they were doing to fix the system.

“Every South Australian is asking themselves just what is going on with the pipes here,” he said. “A hearing of SA Water at the Public Works Committee will at least try to answer some of those questions and ... assure South Australians that something is being done.”

But Mr Hunter said any parliamentary committee would understand that SA Water was doing “an incredibly good job”.

An SA Water spokeswoman said the burst rate in SA was currently lower than at the same time for previous years and it would be happy to front a parliamentary committee.