Pool cuts water waste from tower draining
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Members of the Maryville Parks & Recreation staff stand beside a spurting 6-inch fire hose used Monday to partially fill the Maryville Aquatic Center swimming pool. Water for the pool was piped from a main connected to the city’s central water tower on West Edwards Street rather than using the usual 2-inch feeder line. Water remaining in the tower will soon be drained away so that workers can paint its interior. Pictured from left are Recreation Coordinator Shelly Hersh, Parks & Recreation Director Aaron Dobson, and Recreation Specialist Preston Pedersen.
The weather may not feel much like it, but the summer swimming season is almost here at the Maryville Aquatic Center pool, which was partially filled Monday with about a quarter-million gallons of water piped from the city’s main storage tower located on the other side of town at the terminus of West Edwards Street.
Filling the 450,000-gallon swimming pool is an annual rite, but it was done a little differently this year.
Since the interior of the water tower is to be painted this summer and has to be emptied anyway, Public Works crewmembers simply dumped as much of the tower’s contents as possible into the pool using a conveniently located fire plug and a 6-inch fire hose.
Recreation Coordinator Shelly Hersh, who runs the pool for Maryville Parks & Recreation, said the process lasted more than four hours, which compares to the two and a half days it usually takes to fill the entire pool using a two-inch feeder line.
While the pool water level was rising, Public Works staff continuously monitored water pressure to ensure that homes and businesses continued to have adequate service. The operation was discontinued when water pressure started to drop citywide. The pool will be topped off using the smaller pipe.
Now that the pool more than half full, water system customers will soon be switched over to the city’s two 750,000-gallon auxiliary towers located at the north and south ends of town. The remaining water in the half-empty main tower will be released into a drainage ditch so that workers from Maguire Iron in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, can climb inside and paint it.
Goodall said partially emptying the tower into the pool made more sense than merely dumping its entire contents.
He added that the city should have an adequate water supply while the main tower is shut down, since the million-gallon reservoir long served as Maryville’s sole storage tank, and the two auxiliary towers hold a million and a half gallons between them.
No timeline has been established for painting the inside of the tower, Goodall said, but a pre-project meeting between Maguire and the city is scheduled this week to set up a schedule.
Maguire will also inspect the tower, and Goodall said if no serious problems come to light the tank should be refilled and returned to service about two weeks after work begins.
In addition to painting the inside of the main tower, Maguire will also inspect the two auxiliary towers and a half-million-gallon “clear well” at the water treatment plant east of town. The clear well, Goodall said, is filled with treated water and essentially serves as a fourth drinking water storage unit.
He said water towers should be inspected about every five years, and that the last inspection occurred in 2012. Cost of the painting and inspection effort totals just under $148,000.
The pool is scheduled to open for the summer on Memorial Day, observed this year on Monday, May 30.
