New water tank plans gushing along

By AMY SATTERWHITE / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Trenching for the 20-inch water transmission line continues on Highway 108. City officials expect the project, to include a new 3 million gallon water tank, to be completed by September. (Amy Satterwhite photo)

A cattle farm off Viola Highway would seem an unlikely place to spot a city vehicle, but that’s exactly what one might see there these days.

Even though it is located outside McMinnville’s city limits, city trucks are in the area because construction, via contractors, has begun on a long-awaited $2.6 million water improvement project.

Plans are to build a 3 million gallon water storage tank and roughly three miles of related water transmission lines in the vicinity of the scenic highway.

City officials said the placement of a 113-foot diameter concrete tank near the intersection of Highway 108 and Highway 127 was selected due to water pressure requirements and the height of the other city water tanks, which are 1,132 feet.

“Your water pressure depends upon the height of your tank,” Water and Wastewater director Carl Davis said in explaining why that particular site was chosen, adding city officials spent about a year working out utility easements with affected property owners, “so all the top elevations of the tanks have to be the same.”

Davis also said building an elevated tank in town would have been cost prohibitive, so officials pursued construction at the nearest site possible to achieve the proper elevation.

When completed, the city will have four water tanks, including the 750,000 gallon downtown tank, a 250,000 gallon tank on Cadillac Lane, a 3 million gallon tank at Bybee Branch Road and the new tank, with the last two being ground storage tanks.

Davis said the new tank will provide additional storage, increase the volume of available water, improve fire protection capabilities, improve the quality of water by eliminating “dead end” lines and stabilize pressure in surrounding areas of the city.

While subcontractors have started grading for the new tank, other crews have been busy trenching for and burying a 20-inch water transmission mains along Highway 108. So far, they have dug about 2,500 feet, with plans for the line to end near the city’s water treatment plant near Old Morrison Road.

If all goes as planned, work should be completed by September.

Davis said the project is one that he is glad to see get started since it has taken several years to get to this point.

“The state requires a 24 hour storage capability and we’re about there,” he added of the necessity of the project. “We’re just proud to see it under way.”