Serving the Upper Elevations
2 of the 4 booster stations that pump the water to our customers at higher elevations have reached the end of their safe and reliable life cycle. Both were originally designed and constructed in the 1970s to provide service to less than 100 homes. Both stations initially contained 2 small pumps and a fire pump, totalling about 300 gallons per minute.
Over the years, we have expanded both stations multiple times, so they serve almost 2,000 homes on the hillsides and pump several thousand gallons of water per minute.
We are finalizing the acquisition of an easement to construct a modern, safe and reliable replacement for 1 of these stations. The property for the other replacement was acquired a few years ago when the surrounding property was developed. We are in the design stage for the replacement of the station on Sullivan to ask for bids this spring.
Our current design specifications allow for future growth and the addition of standby generation. This helps us avoid some of the growing pains that we have experienced in the past and provide water at higher elevations in the event of a power outage.
We intend to complete a portion of the design with our staff engineers and to do the interior piping and electrical work with our water crew and electrician. We believe this will save construction costs and will allow our employees, who will operate this facility for the entirety of its useful life, to know every detail about its operation.
About 2 years after the construction of the first station is completed, we will start on the second booster station. As long as we try to obtain cost-savings by using our workforce, we will need to stagger the timeline for construction.
Together these projects are estimated to be over $2 million.