The Birmingham Water Works Board at its meeting next week will likely declare two emergencies related to the operation of its Western Filter Plant, which serves customers in Birmingham and areas north of the city, including Gardendale.

Shan Paden, an outside attorney for the Water Works, recommended the declarations to allow for repairs needed because of a transformer failure and a large leak in a 60-inch pipe at the two water-intake facilities that feed the water-treatment plant.

“If that 60-inch pipe ruptures, you’re going to have a disaster,” Paden told Water Works board members during a work session Wednesday. “You think you’ve got tough jobs now, but when that area goes without water, everyone’s going to know your name.”

A transformer failure in April caused a shutdown of the Mulberry Intake Station, making the system reliant on the Sipsey Intake Station to serve the Western Filter Plant. A leak in the Sipsey Intake Station pipeline is more substantial than originally thought, Paden said, and could lead to a rupture that would render the station inoperable. It’s also eroding a creek that is part of a U.S. waterway, he said.

Paden told board members they need to declare both the transformer failure and pipeline leak E1 emergencies under Alabama code to exempt the required repairs from public bid laws. Those declarations would allow the board to retroactively approve funds already spent on emergency repairs.

To repair the leak, BWW would need to shut down the Sipsey Intake Facility and depressurize the pipeline, Paden said. That would make the Western Filter Plant totally reliant on the Mulberry Intake Facility, which is powered by a new transformer BWW is still testing.

BWW purchased the new transformer in May and commissioned it this week, said Derrick Murphy, assistant general manager of engineering and maintenance for the Water Works.

“Anytime you’re commissioning or recommissioning a piece of equipment, you want it to run and make sure it’s operable before you say it’s good to go,” Murphy said. “It’s no different than when cars come off the assembly line. So, the station itself is going through that process.”

He said a seven-day window of evaluation is needed. Once the operations team deems the Mulberry Intake Facility stable, BWW will schedule the repair of the Sipsey Intake pipeline, he said.

A leak on such a large line is critical, Murphy said, but the situation is under control.

“You don’t know if it would totally rupture or not,” he said. “That’s why we need to get this up and going and go ahead and get that fixed.”

Restarting the Mulberry Intake Station was the first step, Murphy said. “So now we’ll just go to the next step and get that accomplished.”

The Western Filter Plant, located in Birmingham’s Thomas neighborhood, was built in 1962 and has a capacity of 60 million gallons per day, according to BWW. The Sipsey and Mulberry forks of the Warrior River supply water to the plant.

The purpose of Wednesday’s work session was for board members to determine what items will be on the agenda of its next official meeting, which will be held Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.