Sewer-pipe trouble keeps daycare, community club closed

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This article was published 19/03/2024 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Complications in repairing a broken sewer pipe will keep children and staff away from a south Winnipeg daycare for a few more days.

Waverley Heights Child Care Inc., which is located inside the South Winnipeg Community Centres’ Waverley Clubhouse on Chancellor Drive is not expected to reopen until Friday, at the earliest.

The daycare and the larger community centre building have both been closed since last Wednesday, when toilets began backing up and parents were called to pick up their kids.

About 50 children attend the child-care facility.

Waverley West city councillor Janice Lukes said Manitoba Hydro determined a natural gas line is preventing workers from digging up the damaged pipe to make necessary repairs.

“Everybody is doing the best they can do to get this fixed,” Lukes said Tuesday.

“They know it is a child-care facility. They know the community centre is losing money with cancelled events. We’re hoping it can be fixed by Friday.”

Lukes said the community centre called a root-clearing company last week, thinking he problem was simply a blocked sewer line. A camera inserted into the line discovered the broken pipe, located on city property.

Getting to it, however, is now the problem.

“They will have to redirect the gas line or do whatever they have to do,” she said.

“It’s not like it was an old (sewer) pipe. It is the freeze-thaw cycle. Soil moves and soil shifts. This pipe is 50 years old, and they usually last 75 to 100 years.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca