A broken pipe buried in the Passumpsic Riverbed caused an hours-long water outage

 A broken pipe buried in the Passumpsic Riverbed caused an hours-long water outage for the west side of the river, disrupting businesses looking to benefit from graduation day at St. Johnsbury Academy. The commencement ceremony gathered nearly 2,000 people on the Academy campus, and the event happened according to plan despite the lack of water. The school had Calkins Portable Toilets add six porta-potties and hand-sanitizing stations to the campus to compensate for the loss of indoor plumbing. But while graduation attendees may have had someplace to go during the event, when it came to going out for a celebratory meal in town after the ceremony their options were extremely limited, much to the disappointment of local eateries banking on the extra business. No water meant closed restaurants. The water trouble was discovered at about 5:30 a.m. when the town’s water operator, Daniel Gray, discovered that a large volume of water was leaving the system. It was reported that about 1,700 gallons of water per minute was being lost. The search then began for the break in the line, lasting throughout the morning. Water was shut off town-wide, but the east side of the river was restored about 7:30 a.m. when crews determined the break was not on that side.  There is a town-wide boil water directive until further notice, the town has stated.