We are all well aware of of the expense to repair and replace water lines. Utilities expect these assets to last 50 years with little to no problem, but many are seeing failures in recently installed JM Eagle PVC water pipes. Nevada, Virginia, Delaware, Tennessee and over 40 water authorities in California experienced these failures and joined a pending whistle blower lawsuit against JM Eagle.

An employee of JM Eagle, John Hendrix, uncovered substandard materials going into the production of pipes, as well as cost saving manufacturing techniques that diminished pipe quality and durability. After raising his voice to superiors, and refusing to accept “acceptable business risk” as an excuse, he was fired. Since his dismissal, Mr Hendrix has filed a lawsuit to stop the “intentional” production of faulty pipes. Mr Hendrix asserts that more than half of all pipes sold since 1996 are of substandard quality. If this is the case, many more utilities have seen  and will see premature pipe failures. We recommend reviewing past and proposed water line projects to make sure your utility is not impacted by this lawsuit.

The news story can be found here:

Bursting Pipes Lead to a Legal Battle

Utilities are faced with tough decisions when it comes to capital replacements. First, many utilities struggle to identify, schedule and finance these system repairs to begin with. Stepwise recommends implementing an asset management program to ensure repair and replacement becomes a priority to your utility. This program can be as simple as having annual meetings with operations staff to identify aging infrastructure to be replaced, or as complex as implementing an electronic system to monitor the age, criticality and probability of failure for each individual asset. Small to medium size systems can use CUPSS (Check Up Program for Small Systems), which is a free software package available through the EPA (http://www.epa.gov/cupss/).

Assets don’t last forever and failure is inevitable. Once you can accept this hard fact, you can manage the associated costs. However, when suppliers don’t hold up their end of the bargain, an expensive, labor intensive process becomes even worse. We hope that JM Eagle is found to be free of impropriety, but in the meantime keep an eye on this trial and on your assets!