LINCOLN, Maine — Town water district employees were working to repair possibly two broken water mains on West Broadway, officials said Thursday.
Lincoln Water District workers had been trying to repair a break in the 12-inch main that occurred shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday near Machias Savings Bank. As of 6:30 p.m., a crew had isolated one break near the bank and the intersection with Penobscot Valley Avenue and River Road, but they were still getting enough water coming from their digging that they suspected that another break had occurred, said Jeff Day, Lincoln Water District superintendent.
“It looks like I’ve got a long night ahead of me,” Day said Thursday. “We have one break under control, and we are trying to determine whether there is another.”
It is unclear how many businesses or customers have been affected by the break, Day said, although some customers likely benefitted after the breakdown from a rerouting of water through underground mains near McDonald’s restaurant on West Broadway.
Traffic flowed normally around the work site.
The Lincoln Water District serves about 1,500 customers in Howland and Lincoln through four gravel-packed wells in a ground-water aquifer in the most southerly part of Lincoln. The water source has been in use since 1961 and feeds 27 miles of water transmission and distribution mains in Lincoln, including 132 public fire hydrants and 30 private fire services, according to lincolnwaterdistrict.org.