HALIFAX—The pipe that burst this past weekend, turning Pizza Corner into an impromptu water park for downtown Halifax partiers, was more than 150 years old.

Halifax Water workers were called to the corner of Blowers and Grafton Sts. at about 1 a.m. Saturday after a water main break that turned Blowers St. into a river.

People searching for late-night street meat, poutine and pizza took the break in stride, skateboarding through the surf, doing push-ups in the newly-formed river and, as is typical at Pizza Corner, fist-fighting on the sidewalk.

It took Halifax Water crews more than 24 hours to repair the pipe, which spokesperson James Campbell said dates all the way back to 1862.

“We just know there was a break in the pipe. We don’t know if there was a particular cause,” he said.

Campbell said Halifax doesn’t have a lot of pipe from 1862 running under the streets, but workers did replace some from 1862, 1856 and 1892 last year on Crown Drive, near the Armdale Rotary.

In general, Halifax’s water infrastructure is aging, and the utility has been working since 2013 to spend $2.6 billion over the next 30 years to upgrade clean water, waste water and stormwater pipes, along with other infrastructure.

But Campbell said just because pipes are old doesn’t mean they’ll burst, like one did Saturday morning.

“The thickness of the pipe is pretty close to what you’d see in a cannon if you were out at Citadel Hill,” he said. “It’s thick, heavy, cast iron pipe, so the age of the pipe is not necessarily a factor.”

Halifax Water has more than $70 million worth of projects planned for this year, and completed several jobs last fiscal year to take advantage of the federal government’s Clean Water and Wastewater Fund, which made more than $30 million in funding available from the federal and provincial governments.

“We’re always hoping that the federal and provincial folks will have more money coming down the pipe,” Campbell said.

“We always have lots of projects that are ready to go, and when the call comes out for project money, we’re ready to pounce.”

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