Inspection Records Sought in Probe of Md. Water Main Break May Have Been Tossed

An investigation into a water main rupture that flooded River Road in Bethesda last year has found that inspection records might have been thrown away inadvertently, complicating efforts to determine why the main was installed improperly and whether other pipes have similar problems, officials with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission said Thursday.

Officials said three months of searching have failed to turn up daily inspection reports that would indicate what the utility's inspectors witnessed, or at least what they recorded, as the 66-inch concrete pipe was laid in the ground in 1965. A Florida-based consultant reported in May that the pipe was installed directly against jagged rock and lacked the required bedding of gravel to cushion it against cracks and corrosion.

After the report's release, WSSC officials said they would investigate how many other pipe installations had involved the same contractor and inspectors to determine whether corrosion checks on any of those pipes should be made a higher priority. However, the utility's interim general manager and chief engineer said Thursday that they have deemed such a search impractical.

Instead, they said, the WSSC can better determine which of the utility's larger concrete mains are at risk of failure by stepping up inspections to find those with corrosion, regardless of the cause.

"To me, the message is these inspections are crucial," said Teresa D. Daniell, the WSSC's interim general manager.

On Dec. 23, firefighters and police, using boats and a helicopter, rescued a dozen motorists stranded in the torrent of frigid, muddy water that poured down River Road after the pipe burst. The dramatic rescues, shown on television around the world, became a symbol of the potential danger of the nation's decaying underground infrastructure.

The River Road inspection reports could have been thrown away in March or April, when a storage room at the utility's Laurel headquarters was cleaned out to make way for computer equipment, said WSSC spokesman Jim Neustadt. He said microfilms stored in the room were thrown away one or two months before the search began for the River Road records.

"We don't know for sure that those records were in there," Neustadt said.

He said that WSSC policy requires that such records be kept for two years but that they are often kept longer. He said the inspection records could also have been discarded years ago.

Gary J. Gumm, the WSSC's chief engineer, said he found some drawings that had the names of more than 10 inspectors and surveyors on the pipe's installation. But he said it would be "speculative" to conclude that other projects they worked on were faulty. He said it also would be impractical to dig up every pipe they helped install.

"I'm concerned about all those pipes," Gumm said, meaning not just those mains whose installation was overseen by particular inspectors. "We need to get into all of them."

WSSC officials have said they are most concerned about the largest concrete mains because they are highly pressurized and can explode if they become too corroded. Because of development, some pipes once buried in the countryside are close to major roads and neighborhoods, where a main break could cause significant damage. Such large breaks have also led to widespread boil-water advisories.