City investigating water issue on Business Loop 70

The city of Columbia said Tuesday night it’s still working to find the source of a problem that’s causing water to pool up along part of Business Loop 70.

This comes one day after the owners of Robinson’s Cleaners urged the city to fix the problem, saying it’s a safety hazard for drivers, especially during the winter.

ABC 17 News reported Monday that water from behind the Robinson’s Cleaners property trickles down the parking lot and pools onto the Business Loop.

“The property owner has fixed a few things, but there’s still water pooling,” said Connie Kacprowicz with Columbia Water and Light. “Water and Light went in and dug up a portion where our water main is, as well as a portion of the private line that goes into the business, to make sure that it wasn’t something on that line.”

She said they’ve also been doing some testing on the water since they dug up the area behind the property.

“We also took some samples of some of the water from that location to see if it had any chlorine residual in it,” Kacprowicz said. “Chlorine leads us to believe that it’s a water main, a treated water main break, versus some type of ground water or storm water.”

She said the test results did not show any chlorine in the water, so now they’re teaming up with other departments to solve the problem.

“MODOT has been involved since that’s a state roadway, as well as several different city departments,” Kacprowicz said.

The departments are working to find out if it could be some type of storm water issue.

The city said the next step is to do a little more digging.

“We still want to make sure it’s not a problem in our water system, so we’re going further back on the line and digging up to make sure there’s not any water line breaks,” Kacprowicz said.

The city said it agrees with Robinson’s Cleaners that the issue is a safety hazard for drivers, especially in the winter. The city said that’s why they’re continuing to try to find the source.