CRANBERRY TWP — Township officials are seeking solutions to water line breaks that happened because of water usage at the fire department’s training facility.

During a meeting on Thursday, Oct. 2, supervisors approved a $22,000 design contract with HATCH for an isolation water tank that will separate the training hydrant from the main water system and ideally stop future breaks.

“If you turn the valve and turn the water off, which is directly connected to the system, it can potentially and has actually created water breaks in our system — our main lines — that we then have to go and repair,” township manager Dan Santoro explained. “So this is to eliminate that problem.”

According to a township justification memo on the project, HATCH, which manages the township’s water model, conducted a water hammer analysis after water line breaks occurred during fire department training activities.

When it’s installed, Santoro said the new tank will supply water to the hydrant, and when that hydrant is turned on and off quickly, it won’t have an impact on the township’s main water lines.

“The design is going to take another 60 days to figure out what the solution is,” Santoro said of a possible timeline for the project. “Then it’ll come back and we’ll have to evaluate it and figure out if we have to go out to bid for it.”

Following the design phase, he said staff will then bring a recommendation back to the board of supervisors.

In other business, supervisors unanimously approved a $61,731 contract with Triangle Press for the printing of Cranberry’s community newsletter, with the option of up to two additional one-year extensions.