Old redwood water line unearthed in Ketchum

It’s remarkable that while excavating a leaking water main in Trail Creek Village, the backhoe operator discovered that the line in use is an ancient piece of milled redwood. Apparently, it’s part of an old private water system, which the City of Ketchum bought out decades ago.

In addition, there seems to be a dispute as to who is responsible for repairing the line. Being an old water boy, myself, I’ve seen situations like this before, and predict that the city will be ultimately held responsible for this repair. And with old man winter around our next corner, it would be nice to have this redwood line patched soon, restoring a more normal pressure to our municipal water-of-life in that vicinity; as well as getting the mish-mash of hoses out of the way, to make snow-plowing possible.

I think that the best thing that could come out of this would be if the repair workers could carefully cut and salvage a small section of this redwood pipe and donate it to the Ketchum Museum. As one local newspaper editor remarked, “This kind of thing really captures people’s imaginations.”