Water main break beneath Fort Duquesne Bridge sends water pouring down

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A 30-inch water main busted on the Fort Duquesne Bridge in Pittsburgh, sending water shooting to the ground on Thursday night.

The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority is responsible for that line across the bridge. It learned about the leak in the overnight hours. Its crews shut off the water to the 30-inch line and drained the pipe on Friday morning.

“When we see breaks on a pipe like that, we often see quite a bit of water,” PWSA spokesperson Mora McLaughlin said.

PennDOT said 371 bridges in the Pittsburgh area carry utilities. That’s roughly 20% of the bridges in the region. With our numerous rivers and valleys, bridges serve as a way to connect people and their utilities.

“Pittsburgh is a city with a lot of bridges, and those are interconnection points between pieces of land around the city. So yes, utilities like water main pipes do run under bridges sometimes,” McLaughlin said.

The PWSA said the last time it saw a pipe leak on a bridge was earlier this month with a 16-inch line on the Bloomfield Bridge. Crews inspect exposed infrastructure like this when they are in the vicinity and report any issues. 

Even with the amount of water that gushed out of the pipe on the Fort Duquesne Bridge, no customers lost service.

Crews were out accessing the damage and doing cleanup on Friday afternoon. PennDOT said there was no damage to the bridge.

The PWSA didn’t have a timeline for repairs.