Thousands of gallons of water has been surging from the ground and flooding a busy Sunnyvale street for months, and the city initially thought nothing could be done about it.
But the source turned out to be a leak in an old irrigation well, and now the city has a plan to fix it, to the joy of frustrated residents.
Sunnyvale officials initially thought the river of water flowing down Tasman Drive was coming from an artesian well. When it first erupted, it surprised people, and over the past few months they were made to believe nothing could be done to stop it.
But on Thursday, one resident called NBC Bay Area because he said he was fed up.
"I called because over the last four months, I believe there’s been a leak, a water leak down Tasman Lane," Dan Pond said. "One lane has been closed off. My estimation is about 100-to-150 gallons a minute is just pouring into a storm drain."
Others had similar complaints.
"They took out one of the lanes, and the traffic gets really bad sometimes," resident Armstead Booker said. "And going out here during rush hour is not a fun thing to do."
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The city of Sunnyvale, working with the water district, discovered the leak was from an abandoned irrigation well from the agricultural days before Silicon Valley. It's overflowing now because of all the rain.
But it’s taken months to get through the red tape needed to fix it.
"It has been capped previously, but now we need to do it properly, by today’s standards," city spokeswoman Jennifer Garnett said, adding that it will be capped next Tuesday.
"That’s great news. Yeah," Pond said. "And Tuesday. That’s quick."
