FORT WORTH - A sinkhole that formed on an east Fort Worth's woman's flooded property was caused by a 50-year-old city sewer line that failed following Wednesday's heavy rains.
City crews replaced the 33-inch pipe with a 42-inch pipe on Friday but couldn't say what caused the sewer line to fail. The city is in the process of replacing the entire sewer line, which should be completed next fall. Once that work is completed, city crews come back to fill in the old pipeline."We're going to fill it in so there won't be any other collapses," said Mary Gugliuzza, a spokesman for the Fort Worth Water Department.The property owner, Mary Kelleher, saw her property inundated by floodwaters for the second time in 16 months on Wednesday. She doesn't blame the city's sewer line for the flooding. But she said it illustrates how dangerous she believes a 30-inch pipeline installed last year by Enterprise Products Partners is and how it intensified the flooding problems on her property, making it more difficult for the water to recede."This is a prime example of why I'm so concerned about the 30" natural gas transmission line in the flood plain through a landfill less than 100 feet from my house that has 1200 psi of unodorized natural gas running through it," Kelleher said Friday.The gas pipeline was originally installed without a city permit, and the city's flood plain administrator, Clair Davis, wrote a letter to Enterprise last year saying that the pipeline "appears to have obstructed the natural drainage pattern in the area, and may have contributed to increased flooding on adjacent properties."But city officials, who sent an inspector to her property in the 7900 block of Randol Mill Road on Thursday, said Enterprise has completed "95 percent" of the requirements to obtain the permit and that any questions about whether the pipeline was properly installed falls under the jurisdiction of the Texas Railroad Commission.Kelleher, who built her home in 2003, first saw floodwaters soak her property in September 2010 during Tropical Storm Hermine. In both floods, she lost livestock and pets on her property.Bill Hanna, 817-390-7698Twitter: @fwhannaHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
