With the scaffolding at the water tower in Wallaceburg almost ready to come down, officials from Chatham-Kent’s Public Utilities Commission are marking the half-way point in their plan to rejuvenate these structures across the municipality.
Wallaceburg’s tower will be the fifth to complete a transformation, both inside and outside, since 2014. It follows the work done on the towers in Chatham, Blenheim, Dresden and Pain Court.
Tim Sunderland, general manager with the PUC, said all of the towers will have the same kind of look, but it’s for a reason.
“No matter where you go in Chatham-Kent, we want the look of the water tower to be similar and comfortable to everyone, but the individual community has its name on the side of the tower,” he said.
The Wallaceburg tower, known as the Joseph Shaw tower, was constructed in 1999 and carries a 4.5 million liter tank.
The work began in January and included the removal and replacement of the interior and exterior coatings of the tank.
Martin Lukasiewicz, senior project manager with engineering contractor CIMA+, said water towers usually need rehabilitation roughly every 20 years.
“I’m sure residents have seen how the exterior was aging. It wasn’t really looking as pretty as it does now,” he said.
“The scaffolding is really part of the replacement of the exterior coating system to make sure that we can actually do the work. The steel gets blasted, all the coatings get blasted off and the new liners and the coatings are applied by spray and roller.”
Other new features include a new hydro-dynamic mixing system in the tank which improves water age and chlorine residuals, upgrades to the lighting system, some changes to the mechanical equipment in the base of the tower and a new guardrail system on the tank roof.
CIMA+ has been hired by the PUC for the engineering and inspection work on all of the water tower projects thus far, while BGL Contractors Corp. out of Waterloo completed the actual work on this tower.
Lukasiewicz said a lot more work goes into these projects than people might realize.
The workers “make it look really easy, but it’s not easy, so kudos to the contractors and the people who are actually getting the work done every day,” he said.
“Even working in the scaffold on a hot day – if it’s hot where we stand (on the ground), imagine working in a greenhouse 150 feet in the air.”
Sunderland noted these projects take one full year of preparation, with coordination between the operations, engineering and compliance teams so the distribution isn’t affected.
The PUC has five more towers to complete, with Mitchell’s Bay next in line. Sunderland said they’ll complete a water tower roughly every two years.
“Once we complete our 10 water towers, it looks like we’re back to square one again if it’s needed,” he said.
Carmen McGregor, chairperson of the commission and Wallaceburg councilor, said she looks forward to seeing the tower once the scaffolding and tarps are down.
“Having a tower in a community is something that we all look for when we’re travelling, when we’re moving and going to a community,” she said. “You realize you’re there or you realize you’re home when you see the water tower.”