A pipe burst under the wooden bridge of the South Fork Palouse River across from Porch Light Pizza causing local businesses to potentially lose water Sunday evening.

A big rock was thrown into the river under the bridge by an unknown subject, causing the water line in the area to burst, said Shane Emerson, Pullman Police Department officer.

Police cars arrived at the scene around 5:30 p.m., sectioning off SE Kamiaken St with traffic cones for an hour. The Pullman City Administration arrived with workers to shut off the main inline valve to stop the flow of water leading to the pipe, said city administrator Mike Urban,

The clean water line that was burst was isolated to a few businesses in the area, specifically to the Heroes N Sports sandwich shop, and Via Family Chiropractic. Other businesses in the area were notified of the temporary water outage as well, Urban said.

“This was a water line that we certainly knew about, something we’d like to get replaced. With today’s rules we cannot put a water line in the river way like this in the future, it’s an old line but it’s still operational,” Urban said.

Pullman City Administration intends to request a state of emergency alert from mayor Glenn Johnson due to the nature of the break and how it will need to be fixed. Johnson will issue the alert tomorrow, Urban said.

The request for the state of emergency alert is a tool provided by the Revised Code of Washington for cities to get repairs for incidents like this done faster than it would normally take, Urban said.

“Everybody’s water system you know should be fine, but if you see brown or sporadic water, please call the city,” Urban said.