Boys who solved water leak mystery honored at Board meeting

By Randy Bell    

When Clinton’s water system suddenly began struggling to keep its storage tanks filled last month, the Public Works Department suspected that a significant leak somewhere might be part of the problem.

The City issued an alert on social media asking for the public’s help in figuring out where the system was losing water.  Little did it know that a couple of kids would be the ones who found the leak.

At the September 1 Board of Aldermen meeting, Mayor Will Purdie and the Board honored John David Hales, 11, and Zane Joiner, 10, for their discovery.

About a week after the City posted the alert, the boys were exploring the woods in the Bruenburg neighborhood.

“We just go out there every now and then,” John David says. “Me and him, we always find these awesome things.”   

This time, it was a fire hydrant which had been knocked over by a falling tree. Water was gushing out.

John David says it was like “a small stream.”

Zane says, “It made a tunnel under the mud.”

The boys had been in that location many times but had never seen the leak before.

“The tree had fallen on the fire hydrant a long time ago, but it wasn’t leaking then,” John David recalls. He has a theory of what might have happened.  “It developed, I think, pressure in it, and it finally burst.”

Neither boy was aware that the City was looking for a big water leak, but they didn’t keep their discovery to themselves.

“I told my mom and dad,” Zane says, and a Public Works crew responded to fix the leak.

A post on the City’s Facebook page summed it up: “You’re never too young to make a difference in your community.”