Water service restored after main break in Portales

PORTALES -- Water service was restored in Portales at 3 a.m. Friday, about 24 hours after a break in one of the city's main water lines forced schools, public offices and many businesses to close.

A "boil water advisory" had been issued when the system was back up and running.

The boil water advisory was lifted at about 5 p.m. Saturday according to City Manager Sarah Austin.

The Portales water system was shut down early Thursday because a 24-inch PVC line, one of the system's biggest, broke in the vicinity of Bryant Street.

Portales City Manager Sarah Austin said the system was losing water so fast the system had to be shut down.

"They think rocks rubbing on the line over the years weakened the pipe," Austin said. She said the rubbing action would have come from years of cars passing over the pipe.

For a time Thursday non-potable water was available at the city's main fire station off Avenue C and at the C&S parking lot.

As a result of the water system shut down Portales schools and school offices were closed Thursday as was the campus of Eastern New Mexico University.

Roosevelt County offices were closed as were the offices for the City of Portales. Most local businesses also closed.

The water system shutdown also led to changes in the interview schedule for the ENMU chancellor's job. Candidate interviews took place virtually instead of in-person.

Water problems are nothing new to Portales.

City residents woke to no water on Sept. 8, 2019, after a water main break near the intersection of Commercial Street and North Avenue E.

Sammy Standefer, city manager at the time, blamed the outage on "the usual problems." The pipeline, he said, was poorly installed 30 years ago and has continually caused outages in recent years. That weekend marked the second time within a five-year period the city was without water more than 24 hours; the sixth time in five years it had experienced a widespread outage.