A Kennewick Irrigation District canal was shut down Monday morning after seepage from an underground siphon was discovered on the Canyon Lakes Golf Course.
About 4,700 KID customers in southeast Kennewick and Finley were without water through much of Monday and are expected to be dry again today and Wednesday. The canal runs from the Amon Wasteway to Finley.
KID Spokeswoman Beth Smith said golf course employees found standing water on the course
Monday morning, which led to the discovery of the underground leak. She said the standing water was about a foot wide and a couple of inches deep.
"It was a small area," she said, adding, "You could see it bubbling up."
The canal and siphon -- a large, underground concrete tube -- were drained Monday afternoon, and Cooper Homme, an operations employee, crawled inside to search for the problem.
He found that two pieces of grout had fallen out, breaking the seals of the joints between two sections of the 54-year-old Zintel Siphon pipe, said KID officials.
Operations supervisor Con Higley said, "This is an easy fix; repairs will be completed (Monday night)."
Crews expected to begin refilling the pipe by 7 p.m. Monday night. It's expected to take two to three days before normal water deliveries can continue.
The seepage hardly interrupted play on the golf course Monday. Golfers were diverted to a specific tee box on the second hole, said Tom Enneking, who works in the golf course's pro shop.
"It's not really affecting us much at all," he said.
Enneking said the golf course uses KID water, but has its own well that's used when KID's service is off.
This comes a week after KID was forced to shut down the Badger East Canal because of seepage problems. That canal was shut down for several days as workers applied a concrete sealer to stop the leaking.
And a leak similar to Monday's siphon leak occurred earlier this spring on the Low Lift Canal under 10th Avenue in Kennewick.
For more information on the latest shutdown, call 586-9111.
w Drew Foster: 585-7207; dfoster@tri
cityherald.com
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