A Curious Nashville question about a persistent puddle leads to a water main fix

It’s not every day that local news helps repair infrastructure.

But thanks to a question from local civil engineer Darren Duckworth, Curious Nashville has helped fix a pipe.

For about six months, he’d noticed a persistent puddle on Spring Street where it passes beneath Interstate 24.

He worried it might be damaging the roadway, especially because of wear and tear when water cycles through freezes and thaws. 

He wrote:

Even in long periods of dry weather, the area is persistently wet. Is that a spring? (It is Spring street after all.) Or maybe a broken waterline?

We routed the question to Sonia Allman with Metro Water Services while preparing for an upcoming segment on This Is Nashville.

“We investigated,” she said. “It was indeed a broken water line.”

And action was swift. The city repaired the 6-inch main.

In the process, Allman shared how they differentiated the water source, to be sure that it was not a natural spring. They tested a sample.

“It had chlorine in it, which is indicative of a water main break.” she said. “Problem has been solved, and thank you so much, Darren.”

For his part, Duckworth said the problem solving left him “grinning from ear to ear.”

He finds that his profession in civil engineering is often a conversation killer. (“I’m probably looking at pavements and thinking about the infrastructure underneath them a little more intently than most people.”) So, he was delighted about the outcome.

“I was really joyfully surprised to hear people getting excited about a water line leak getting reported and repaired,” he said.

Courtesy Metro Water Services

This puddle on Spring Street was caused by a broken water main. It got a fix after a question to Curious Nashville.