POULSBO — A weekend sewage leak has closed Liberty Bay for the third time in the past 14 months as Poulsbo public works crews responded to a cracked pipe Saturday night.

“It was 3,000 gallons, and it was not caused by a defect in the pipe,” city Public Works Director Jeff Bauman said Monday morning.

The leak occurred in a section of pipe south of the Marine Science Center pump station that carries raw sewage uphill to Fjord Drive and into the rest of the city’s sewer system.

Because the pump station only operates for a short period each hour, the discharge wasn’t as large as it would have been if it had a continuous flow, Bauman said, adding that it took city crews about an hour to stop the leak.

Liberty Bay was closed by the Kitsap County Health District Sunday. The closure will last at least through Nov. 12, said health district water quality specialist Stuart Whitford.

“Given that we are having flood conditions it is prudent to keep it in place at least through the weekend,” Whitford said. It’s not only the sewage spill but other non-point pollutants that make the closure necessary, he said.

The spill is approximately three times larger than the Dec. 13, 2005 spill at the Marine Science Center pump station, which was caused by a power outage. That spill was estimated at less than 1,000 gallons.

However, it is much smaller than the 553,000-gallon spill which occurred between Sept. 9 and Sept. 29, 2005 on the sewer line that runs from Viking Avenue to the Marine Science Center.

Mayor Kathryn Quade thanked the residents who live near the location of the leak for notifying the city’s public works department, which led to the prompt repair.

“They were diligent enough to call public works,” Quade said, adding that the residents reported an unusual sound in the vicinity of the leak.

Because of the relatively small size of the leak, the city’s telemetry system didn’t set off any alarms, Bauman said.

“If it had been catastrophic, the telemetry would have let us know,” he said.

However, after the Sept. 29, 2005 spill, former Public Works Director Jeff Lincoln said that a telemetry system would notify the city at the first sign of trouble.

But Bauman said the city’s most intensely monitored sewer line is the one along the bay, which in addition to the telemetry system has flowmeters in place. Those meters measure how much sewage leaves the Lindvig Pump Station and arrives at the Marine Science Center Pump Station.

After public works crews were notified of the problem, they worked into the early hours of Sunday morning before having to stop because of high tides, he said.

“It took them about 14 hours to make the repairs, and they put a temporary patch on it,” Bauman said of the two-foot crack. “They tested it, and we put it back into operation.”

A permanent patch will be installed as soon as it arrives, but in the meantime the sewer line is safe, Bauman said.

Even though the crack didn’t occur on the sewer line, which runs along Liberty Bay from its head at Dogfish Creek to the Marine Science Center, it is another demonstration of the necessity of improving the city’s sewer system, Quade said.

“We’ve got to get the Bond Road Pump Station completed,” she said, noting that once that facility is completed, the city will be one step closer to being able to reduce flows in the shoreline sewer line.

The incident also serves as a shining example of the commitment and dedication of the public works department staff, she said.

“We’re very fortunate to have a dedicated staff who works until the job is done,” Quade said.