I am a former employee of the Tucson AZ Rain For Rent
facility. Approx. April 2009 to March 2015.
This facility has used 4" HDPE pipe and various steel water bridges
("Road Crossings") on emergency and non emergency potable temporary drinking
water bypass projects for The City of Tucson Water Department and
subcontractors of at least two times. The water bridges used in
these projects have been previously used on sewer bypass projects and
even petroleum contaminated water projects many times before being
used on these drinking water bypass projects. The water bridges
usually have large balls of human hair, waste, condoms and feminine hygiene
lodged in them from past projects. I personally found this absolutely
disgusting but the management at this branch seemed to feel a good
rinse out was more than adequate for a potable application. The most recent event
happened on July 31 2014. A contractor hit a water main in a wash on
Harrison Rd in Tucson. Rain For Rent installed a emergency potable
water bypass going from a fire hydrant at the corner of 10265 E
Irvington Rd and Houghton to another receiving hydrant in a nearby
neighborhood to the North on the corner of
E Honey Mesquite Dr and Placita Pinole.
This job consisted of 4" diameter HDPE pipe
that I partially installed and 3 steel water bridges & miscellaneous hardware.
Instead of acquiring Virgin Stock new pipe for this job that most states require
and simply making traffic crossing areas with
cold patch asphalt they instead used old pipe and water bridges that were
not clean or designated for potable water use. This hardware had been
used on numerous sewer bypass projects before and is what supplied potable water
to a entire neighborhood in East Tucson for well over a month. I have filed a complaint with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality Complaint ID# 11810 on this issue.This facility was also operating a illegal, not to code wash pad without a AZPDES permit. I filed ADEQ complaint ID#11800 regarding this issue.
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