Background on Elevated Water Tank
Frances Akridge, our City Councilmember, and Huntsville Utilities shared this with me today. I thought other inquiring minds might like to know what was going on with the water tower as well.
We are currently rehabbing the existing Monte Sano Elevated Water Tower that is located on Mae Drive near Monte Sano Elementary. The 150,000 gallon tank was built in 1957 and is approximately 160 foot tall. The exterior of the tank was last coated in 1996. The current project was approved by the City through City Resolution No. 20-847 on September 24,2020. The resolution authorized a group of maintenance projects and Tank Maintenance and Repainting was included in the Budget Work Order (BWO) 152-2021 on line 6 in the amount of $1,030,000. We planned to rehab the SW Washwater Tank, Russell Hill #2 Tank and Monte Sano Tank. We were able to complete SW Washwater and Russell Hill #2 tanks in 2021, however, Monte Sano was delayed a year in order for us to perform warranty repairs to the East Governors Tank. Due to the way that the water system is configured, we are unable to take East Governors and Monte Sano tanks out of service at the same time and we had a limited window to get the East Governors warranty work completed.
The rehabilitation project consists of draining the tank, repairing any corroded or damaged areas of metal, blasting the existing interior and exterior coatings, and recoating the entire tank. A shrouding has been used during the recoating to prevent coating overspray from settling on adjacent properties and buildings. The tank colors will be similar to what is existing, see picture below from pre-2016, with a darker green on the lower half and light blue on the upper half. We expect the majority of the work to be completed by the end of March. We expect the new coating to last at least 20 to 25 years.
The second image below is from an aerial image taken in 1961. The tank in question is circled in red. As you can see, the tank was built prior to any neighboring houses.
-Donna Cunningham, President
