From two towers to one?

Rehabilitation of a leaking, bolted water tank west of Saratoga appears to be off the table. 

Discussion of the tank came up during the April 14 meeting of the Saratoga-Carbon County Impact Joint Powers Board (SCCIJPB) with two vastly different estimates from two companies to repair the tank. For the past several years, the tank has had either massive water stains or large chunks of ice along its side.

When the special election for the One Percent Specific Purpose Sales and Use Tax (6th penny tax) was held on May 7, 2019 one of the projects listed for Saratoga was the rehabilitation of the water tank. Nearly two years ago, following a Level One Water Study completed by Forsgren Associates of Evanston, Wyoming, a recommendation was made to either rehabilitate the tower or move it to the east side of Saratoga.

Recently, while in the process of obtaining quotes for the repair of a vent on the welded water storage tank, Director of Public Works Jon Winter obtained estimates for repair; one from Maguire Iron of South Dakota and one from AmTech Tank Lining & Tank Repair of New Hampshire. According to Winter, while AmTech quoted approximately $330,000, Maguire Iron quoted $35,000.

"I asked them (Maguire Iron) a number of times about that," said Winter. "He asked me how many leaks there were. Kind of hard to tell because they started popping and stained down and it's kind of hard to tell if there's other leaks in that same vertical seam."

Winter added that Maguire Iron had made their estimate based on the number of leaks, which the public works director placed at 24. When he asked Maguire Iron what the quote would be if there were 58 leaks instead, the response was that the quote would be double but still less than $100,000.

"Why are we still considering pouring money into a tank we may potentially relocate or take down?" asked Councilmember Jon Nelson. 

Nelson stated that, with a backup generator at the Town's well fields, there was no reason to have two tanks with two million gallons of water storage. Historically, while the two tanks also served as a standpipe to pressurize the water system, the storage was also utilized when the Town of Saratoga pulled water from the North Platte River for treatment.

"We couldn't pull enough water out of the river to treat it to keep up with demand," Winter said. "When you don't have that, you have more storage so you can augment your production with stored water."

Winter informed the joint powers board that he would prefer to utilize only one tank, the welded tank, this summer to measure how well it could keep up with high water demand. With little snow on the ground and a dry summer expected, the public works director stated that the summer may be the perfect time to test if one storage tank combined with the wellfield could meet demand.

"I don't ever want to put another dime into that tank other than to tear it down," said Chairman Richard Raymer.

While no formal action was taken on the bolted tank, the consensus of the board appeared to be that it should not be rehabilitated.

The next meeting of the Saratoga-Carbon County Impact Joint Powers Board will be at 6 p.m. on May 12 at the Platte Valley Community Center in Saratoga.