Along North Virginia Street near the southeast corner of the Chaves County Courthouse, a work crew was busy repairing a failed water line on Thursday morning.

Some of the crew members were inside the large hole that was created to reach the underground leak. Others were working from above, standing next to the hole as they handled equipment. Water had been running along the Virginia Street curb in both directions and had been passing the crosswalk between the courthouse steps and the parking lot.

A significant amount of Roswell’s aging infrastructure — some of which is at least a century old — is far past its prime. Most of the city’s water system was placed between 1940 and 1980.

“I can tell you we have water breaks and repairs almost daily,” City Manager Chad Cole explained last week.

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