Service has been fully restored, but the main water line break that dried up Vicksburg for 24 hours beginning late Wednesday afternoon cost the city between $50,000 and $60,000 in revenue, officials said Friday.

&#8220It affects revenue that we didn’t have sales” while water was off, said city Strategic Planner Paul Rogers. &#8220It’ll be basically about $15,000 in water revenue and $17,550 in sewer.”

The city also lost thousands in gallons pumped from the Water Treatment Plant but never used, instead draining from pipes across the city after the 36-inch &#8220artery” running from the plant burst under pressure from ground movement between 5 and 5:30 p.m.

Public Works Director James &#8220Bubba” Rainer said the line was repaired Thursday, but crews were still working to get water levels back up to normal at the plant.

&#8220We’re still moving forward. We still haven’t been able to fill our tanks (at the plant) yet,” he said. &#8220Everybody’s got water, we just don’t have the pressure we had before the break.”

In the meantime, a citywide boil water notice remains in effect for at least several more days.

&#8220It’ll be sometime the latter part of next week before we know anything” about possible contamination from bacteria in the pipes when pressure was lost, Rainer said.

Water and sewer rates vary depending on the number of gallons consumed and the type of meter reading the usage. Currently, base rates would result in a water bill of $20.72 for 8,000 gallons use, and $22.89 for 8,000 gallons used to move sewage. Those rates will rise by 25 and 26 cents per thousand gallons, respectively, when the city’s 2007 budget goes into effect Oct. 1.

The city does not make money on water, sewage or any other utility, operating each in a separate fund on a break even basis. The Water Fund in the 2006 budget was projected to collect $3.9 million in metered sales but spend more than $4.72 million in personnel, services, supplies and capital costs, resulting in a $706,000 shortfall that was expected to shrink by $50,000 in the upcoming 2007 budget.

City sewer service was expected to see more than $3.3 million from metered sales in 2006, the same number projected for the upcoming year. It operates at a loss of more than $1.46 million.

Pressure from the released water blew a small crater along the side of the private road running parallel to Haining Road, next to Anderson-Tully Company off North Washington Street.

The 36-inch line is the city’s primary line from the water plant, and splits into two 24-inch lines running in opposite directions at about Jackson Street, Rainer said. From there, the system further branches out into webs of 18, 10 and 8-inch lines. About 3 million gallons of water run through the station at any one time, he said.

Customers started losing pressure about 5 p.m. Wednesday, and the system was dry within a couple of hours. Before the break was found, 60 or 70 city workers and officials drove around the city for about three hours looking for a large pool of water or other signs of a break.

Vicksburg extracts water from a field of wells in the area of the break. The well water is then transferred to a treatment plant on the harbor for purification. In then goes into the pipe network, which includes a series of elevated tanks to provide pressurized service.