Elgin crews continue work on broken water main

A key downtown Elgin bridge is not expected to fully reopen until about noon on Saturday, officials said.

City crews continued working Thursday to repair a broken 12-inch wide water main that closed the Kimball Street bridge and caused plenty of headaches during Wednesday's rush hour.

David Lawry, the city's general services director, said crews had repaired a 10-foot span that had several cracks in it. and would be pouring a low strength concrete mix into the ditch around the pipe. But cold weather could prevent the material from setting until Saturday.

"The best bet is to assume it won't open until noon-ish on Saturday," Lawry said. "We're going to do everything we can to get it open (Friday)."

The break occurred just west of the railroad tracks and cut off Metra service to the last two stops along the line, the downtown Elgin and Big Timber stations. Trains were back on schedule Thursday.

Police planned to open the two westbound lanes over the bridge for Thursday's rush hour.

Officials had feared the break at Kimball and Route 31 would impact some 20,000 homes on the city's east side, but those estimates were overstated. The pipe delivers drinking water from a west side plant

"The water's fine," said John Loete, public works director. "We did not lose pressure and we were able to isolate the leak. The still more than adequate capacity to serve the east side of the river."

Crews were trying to determine the location of the break, Loete said. If it occurred inside a special steel casing pipe, which protects the main pipe as it runs underneath the railroad tracks, repairs could take several days. If the break was not in the casing pipe, repairs could be completed faster.

Neither scenario threatened to disrupt train service along the Milwaukee District West train line, Loete said.

Meanwhile, facilities around the break returned to normal. The Gail Borden Public Library reopened its doors after being forced to close several hours early Wednesday.

"You just have to drive from the north and the east to get to us," said Denise Raleigh, the library's director of marketing. "We do have people here, a fairly full parking lot. We're business as usual."