One of Bethany Beach’s legendary sights was the town’s old water tower, which most coming into the town from Route 26 once recognized as the signal that they had reached their seaside destination.
The old tower is no more, but the town could soon have a new water tower – one that will better meet the needs of a booming year-round and summer population.
Council members at their Nov. 8 workshop heard a presentation on the town’s water-related needs, immediate and future, from Town Manager Cliff Graviet and Water Department Director Ron Foreman, who referred to an August 2007 draft water storage study from consultants Kercher Engineering.
The recommendation from Kercher: the town should look at adding .75 million gallons of water storage capacity in a new water tower at its Collins Street facility. That would be in addition to the town’s existing, 1 million gallon standpipe at that location. The project could cost about $2 million, but it is a cost the town may have little choice about paying.
“Data for the past five years shows that water demands during the summer months (June through August) increased by a factor of 2.5 to 3.0 over the remaining nine months of the year,” reads the study. “The water system must be capable of meeting those peak demands that occur during the summer months. Water demands are projected to average 1.05 million gallons per day (mgd) during the summer months, with a maximum daily demand of 1.75 mgd.”
Further complicating the issue of meeting that peak demand is the comparatively low functional capacity of the existing 1 million gallon standpipe. Due to its design, Foreman explained, the standpipe has a functional capacity of just 50 percent of that amount.
While a modern water tower features a comparatively narrow pipe bringing water into and out of the bulbous area at its apex and only open storage area for supplies and equipment in any tower surrounding the pipe, Foreman explained, a standpipe contains water throughout its entire capacity, from ground to peak.
As a result, about half of the water in the town’s standpipe never reaches a sufficient height to create usable pressure for the system, which instead relies upon a numerous pumps to push the water out to users. That pumping equipment requires electricity — which in turn means an emergency generator and laying in supplies of fuel for even brief outages.
“If it goes down, we’re done,” Foreman said of the electrical equipment.
The standpipe design also leaves the remaining 50 percent of the water virtually stagnant in the bottom part of the standpipe, where it quickly exhausts a recommended period of water age — the time from water treatment until its use.
“Water age is a big issue with chloramines treatment,” Foreman explained to council members on Nov. 8, comparing the town’s new system of water treatment with traditional chlorine treatment. “We need to watch how it breaks down.”
The town instituted treatment with chloramines in late 2005, in response to water tests that showed substances called trihalomethanes (THMs) at 89.5 parts per million, above the recommended maximum of 80 ppm for drinking water.
THMs are produced when organic material in water reacts with chlorine, and some are considered possibly carcinogenic. Thus, the town moved to switch from chlorine as its water treatment chemical to chloramines, which do not produce THMs. But that increased concerns about water age in the standpipe, since chloramines are produced by adding ammonia to chlorine and do decay over time.
“There’s no effective means to alter the water age with a standpipe,” Foreman said, telling council members that to maintain acceptable water age he had resorted to flushing water hydrants every week and thus wasting treated water. “You can do some things with an overhead supply,” he noted.
Tower design seen as beneficial
According to Foreman, a new water tower would have other benefits for the town, beyond additional storage capacity and improvements to water age: when one storage facility needs maintenance, the system could run off the other.
That would prove a help in something as simple as keeping the tower and standpipe painted — something the Foreman says is needed now but was not workable when the contractor showed up this July to do it. In the heat, the cool water inside the standpipe produced condensation on the outside of the standpipe, making it impossible to paint.
Foreman said such work — as well as any repair or maintenance inside the 21-year-old standpipe — has traditionally been done in the winter for that reason. He said he was unsure of the current condition or potential lifespan of the standpipe, as the tank really would need to be emptied to determine how well it has worn inside. Standpipes traditionally last from 10 to 30 years, with maintenance, he said.
Making that kind of maintenance more workable in the past was the town’s interconnection ability with neighboring water system — itself compromised now that the town is using chloramines for its water treatment. Graviet said the Sussex Shores and Tidewater system operators might conceivably refuse to allow an interconnection now, since they still use chlorine for their water treatment.
In the future, with a second water storage facility, the town could just empty one tank when it needed maintenance and rely upon the other for a time. That redundancy was a major selling point on the idea Nov. 8. Two storage facilities could also provide enhanced water supply during peak usage.
Graviet also noted that a water tower would be considered even safer in high winds than ground-level storage. “It’s rated to 175 mph,” he told the council in response to a question about a water tower’s ability to survive a Hurricane Katrina-like Category 5 storm.
Location of tower still up in the air
While Kercher’s recommendations included plans to put the proposed water tower adjacent to the existing standpipe at the Collins Street location, Graviet emphasized on Nov. 8 that the town had put forward only that one site to Kercher for its study and recommendations.
The possibilities could expand well beyond that site, and perhaps should, Foreman and Graviet suggested, citing a lack of room for further future expansion at Collins Street if the new tower joins the existing standpipe there. Realistically, a new water tower could be added at any point along the town’s existing water system without need for substantial additional infrastructure in the system.
Foreman said a location other than Collins Street could also benefit the town in allowing more room for future expansion at Collins Street, should that be needed.
The town removed a large tank at the site of the current town hall before that building’s construction, on the advice of the then-town engineer, who said they’d never need the additional capacity with the standpipe in place.
In light of Kercher’s recommendations for capacity to last the town through growth from now until at least 2015, the lesson of that mistake sank home Nov. 8 with current council members and particularly with Council Member Bob Parsons, who was part of the council that made that call. Room for additional capacity in the far-off future is unlikely to be considered lightly in current discussions and could fuel at least some of the decision regarding location.
And Council Member Steve Wode recommended one alternative site that may cheer the hearts of and please the nostalgic among the town’s old guard: the town-owned property at the Route 1/Route 26 intersection, formerly owned by the Bethany Beach Christian Church and the Neff family, and directly across Route 26 from the site of the legendary Bethany Beach water tower of old.
Wode said the location of a new tower there would follow the council’s stated notion of creating a “gateway to Bethany Beach” at the site. Foreman confirmed there is already a water main present at the location, making a connection to the system very simple were it to be located there.
And plans for an open-space or “green” use at the property would be minimally impacted by the leg or legs of a new water tower, council members suggested. Its visual presence would largely be above the treeline.
Also floated on Nov. 8 as a possible future location was town-owned property in the Salt Pond community, which is served by the town water system. But Graviet discounted the possibility, noting deed restrictions that would require Salt Pond property owners to approve the construction of any tower there.
Graviet was more positive about another possibility: the National Guard training facility off Route 1, between town limits and its public works facility to the north.
Parsons noted that, many years ago, the town had been approached by the National Guard about possibly supplying the facility with town water. That is something that might be even more attractive now if the town could provide that water at the kind of comparatively inexpensive rate it has for its residents when compared to central water systems serving the North Bethany area, and something that could encourage the town and National Guard to come to an agreement on location.
Graviet said he planned to approach National Guard representatives about the idea in the near future, as well as to ask Kercher to do a complete location study to determine the feasibility of various town-owned properties for the location of a future water storage facility.
Cost and capacity considered
Up for some debate on Nov. 8 was the recommendation from Kercher for 1.23 million gallons of total water storage capacity.
Council Member Tracy Mulligan questioned why the study had recommended an additional .6 million gallons of effective water storage, leading to the .75 million gallon capacity recommendation for the new tower, which was the largest size of tower Kercher believed would fit at the Collins Street site.
The recommendation for capacity hinges on stricter “regulatory guidance” that considers a worst-case scenario of dry weather, a large-scale fire and high daily demand on the water system. Mulligan said he wanted to hear more about the reasons behind the difference of more than a half-million gallons in capacity before he would freely support the idea.
While all of the council members agreed on Nov. 8 that the additional storage is needed, the anticipated expense of that need will mean serious thought for all of them on how the project comes to pass.
Kercher estimated some $2 million in costs for the elevated tank to be constructed at Collins Street. That’s not counting the estimated $1.3 million in water system costs that Graviet said the town was already potentially facing if a report on its filtration and aeration systems comes back with bad news, which is considered more likely under the rigors of the chloramines-based treatment system.
Foreman emphasized on Nov. 8 that the town’s water operations are in good shape. “We’re trying to be proactive here,” he told the council, adding that the considerations for water system improvements were aimed at meeting the town’s needs for the next 20 years.
“There are no problems now,” Graviet reiterated. “We felt the responsible thing to do was address the issue.”
Council members asked Foreman and Graviet to ensure that the costs of the repairs and maintenance to the water system be included in the town’s 2009 budget for future planning purposes.
Graviet said some of the town’s sinking fund was due to be paid off from 2009 through 2012, leaving more room in its borrowing capacity over the coming years for the town to begin investing in both the short-term and long-term water system needs. But he said he expected that a bond issue would be needed to pay for the construction of the new tower.
Council members agreed Nov. 8 that the time had come for the council to make a decision and give the town’s budget committee some guidance on the water storage issue, after several years of ongoing discussions.
“It’s time for us — if not past time for us — to be making this decision,” Vice-Mayor Tony McClenny said.