Pawtucket pump being returned

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, October 16, 2007

By John Castellucci

Journal Staff Writer

PAWTUCKET — A raw-water intake pump installed as part of the city’s new multimillion-dollar water treatment plant is being returned to the factory to determine why it’s making so much noise.

The pump, along with two others that draw water from Happy Hollow Pond in Cumberland, makes a noise that sounds like rattling marbles whenever it runs.

Water Supply Board officials say the sound is evidence of a design defect that could cause permanent damage.

They are refusing to let Earth Tech operate the plant until the issue is resolved.

Earth Tech is the company hired to build the water treatment plant. The pump was manufactured for Earth Tech by Patterson Pumps, of Toccoa, Ga.

Patterson and Earth Tech have disagreed about what is causing the noise, with Patterson taking the position that the rattling sound results from air seeping into the raw-water intake piping and Earth Tech asserting it arises from a defect in the pumps.

The disagreement has dragged on for more than three months, delaying completion of the water treatment plant and trying the patience of Water Supply Board officials.

During a recent discussion of the noisy pump problem, City Councilor and Water Supply Board member Thomas E. Hodge told Earth Tech, “We’re caught between the pump manufacturer and you.”

But Earth Tech has taken a series of steps to identify the source of the problem, including connecting one of the pumps to Happy Hollow Pond as directly as possible to eliminate the possibility that air seeping into the intake piping was the source of the noise.

On Thursday morning, Earth Tech turned that pump on in the presence of Jack Claxton, vice president for engineering of the Patterson Pump Co.

“In the configuration, the pump was improved but still exhibiting a noise level that is unacceptable,” Claxton said yesterday in an e-mail to The Providence Journal.

“On that basis, one pump is being returned to the factory for further testing and adjustments to resolve the issue,” the message said.

The statement appeared to represent a significant change of position by Patterson, which has insisted that all three raw-water intake pumps could be run without fear of damage.

But Claxton, who said he wasn’t authorized to say more than what was in the e-mail, qualified the statement: “As a matter of record, Patterson considers the pumps operable as-is and is reaffirming its written authorization to place the pumps in service.”

The pumps are crucial because without them Earth Tech has no way to get water from the reservoirs in Cumberland to the new water treatment plant on Branch Street.

The pumps are enclosed in a two-story brick building and connected to the three-foot diameter transmission main that Earth Tech had installed between the new water treatment plant and Happy Hollow Pond.

Allen Champagne, the Water Supply Board’s source water manager, said it isn’t going to be easy to remove one of the pumps and return it to the Patterson Pump Co.’s factory in Georgia.

The pump will have to be completely dismantled, Champagne said, hoisted out of the two-story building and hauled back to the factory by truck.

That’s expected to take a couple of weeks, further delaying completion of the treatment plant, which is already more than a year and a half behind schedule.

The pumps cost hundreds of thousand of dollars to make and took four or five months to procure, according to Earth Tech. It isn’t going to be easy to make new ones, the company indicated, if the existing pumps can’t be fixed.

“It’s not an off-the-shelf item,” Earth Tech project manager Robert Markowitch said.

The new water treatment plant is being built to replace the city’s existing plant, on Mill Street in Cumberland.

Champagne was asked last week how much longer the 69-year-old existing plant could operate without risk of a breakdown.

The answer wasn’t encouraging: “We’re pushing the envelope,” he said.