Crews hired by the Bristol County Water Authority have abandoned their digging in search of a leak in the BCWA's cross bay pipeline, and are now looking at whether the leaky pipe can be lined instead of repaired.

On Monday, BCWA Executive Director Pamela Marchand said officials have called off any further digging at the Port of Providence, where the leak was discovered nearly a month ago. Workers had been digging a large trench along the pipeline's route in hopes of finding the source of the 288,000 gallon per day leak, but Ms. Marchand said the pipe is getting deeper below grade as they follow its path; with the trench now 22 feet deep, any further digging would be too dangerous due to tidal water encroachment and unstable soil.

The trench's current depth, she said "is the limit of where we can get. Therefore we are discontinuing the excavation and beginning to fill the trench."

Digging to directly root out the source of the leak is now impossible, she said, as the pipeline was not designed to allow exploratory digging at much below surface depth:

"How do you get to it?"

Instead, she said the BCWA's most likely recourse now is to line the pipeline's interior with a smaller diameter PVC pipe. But whether or not "sliplining" is possible has yet to be seen, she said:

"It is still necessary to investigate the interior of the steel pipe to insure the leak was not the result of a shift or a collapse of the pipe that would prevent a new pipe from being inserted," she said.

Even if the pipeline can easily accept a slipline, she said, it remains to be seen what type of material could be used "due to the high pressure at 160 feet below the river."

Putting in a smaller diameter pipe would also cut down on the amount of water available for customers in the East Bay, she added. The current pipeline is about 24 inches in diameter, but the slipline would probably have to have an inner diameter of about 17.2 inches, she said:

"It would probably be enough to supply Bristol County's needs, but" might not be enough to supply East Providence in case of emergencies.

Ms. Marchand said the next step will be to install a tap into the pipeline, into which instrumentation that could help pinpoint the leak would be inserted. Though that rented equipment is now available to use, she said, neither it nor the experts trained to operate it are local.

"We are awaiting a schedule of when they could come in," she said.

As for the search's costs, she said it is "unlikely" that the $500,000 in emergency funds authorized by the BCWA's board of directors will be enough to complete the repair work.

Meanwhile, the BCWA's mandatory ban on unnecessary and outdoor water use remains in effect until further notice.