found the buried polyethylene was undamaged from direct contact with heat. The issue we found was contamination in the majority of service laterals which served burned structures, regardless of material type, so we needed to replace those service lines. It (the HDPE pipe) also gave us the ability to come back and upsize those service lines to support the rebuild and meet with customers’ requirements for their meters and fire service. PE seems to be the best product to meet those needs. Seismi- cally, it’s flexible and can handle the movement up here. It’s easy to pull in trenchless which makes it beneficial for the rebuild process. “We felt the best form of protection for our service laterals was not the material itself but just putting in backflow protection to reduce the chance of contamination entering the system during a depressuriza- tion event. Again, we believe the occurrence of contamination wasn’t associated with the material of the piping, it was associated with the depressurization, contamination being drawn into the system and how long the system was disconnected to allow that contamination to ad- sorb into the pipe walls.” Phillips estimates that the new Town of Paradise will take nearly 20 years to be back to where it was prior to the Camp Fire. “It takes a long time to build homes,” he said. “We have had a huge surge of building permits issued in the Town of Paradise. There is a ton of pressure on getting new water service to those new rebuilds. And with polyethylene, it has created efficiencies so that we can get out there and get a service line in within an hour or two of that request. Once we get there and onsite it’s very easy to get in that water line because of the use of polyethylene. “By use of the polyethylene and the ability for us to get it in without a lot of problems and be able to get it in the street and work around issues The Paradise Irrigation District will eventually replace 315,000 feet of water service lines using high-density polyethylene (HDPE) tubing.
that might be there, such as rocks and other services that are com- ing underground. It makes the rebuild process and getting the water service back a lot easier than it would be if we had to bore through with a steel or copper (pipe). PE is our standard moving forward and throughout the rebuild process.” Additionally, large diameter N-12® corrugated HDPE pipe from ADS is being used on several stormwater drainage projects in Paradise. These include the Paradise tennis courts and the Paradise softball field. As a service to the industry, the PPI recently published its analysis of benzene contamination found at the site of the 2018 Camp Fire catas- trophe in and around Paradise. The 13-page report, PPI Document TR- 51 “Investigation of Benzene in Drinking Water Following the “Camp Fire” in Paradise, CA”, is available free at the PPI website. More information can be found at www.plasticpipe.org. About PPI The Plastics Pipe Institute, Inc. (PPI) is the major North American trade association representing the plastic pipe industry and is dedicated to promoting plastic as the materials of choice for pipe and conduit applications. PPI is the premier technical, engineering and industry knowledge resource publishing data for use in the development and design of plastic pipe and conduit systems. Additionally, PPI collabo- rates with industry organizations that set standards for manufacturing practices and installation methods.
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January 2021
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