Crescent City will add a new component to its water system that will regulate water pressure more efficiently and, eventually, lead to the dismantling of the 67-year-old elevated tank near Wonder Stump and U.S. 101.
The City Council approved a $694,000 contract with Humboldt County-based Wahlund Construction to build a 6,000 gallon pressurized tank. The new tank will be across the street from the Ranney collector, which takes in water from the nearby Smith River, Public Works Director David Yeager said Monday.
The new tank, which will include a bladder that runs on an air compressor, will be able to absorb additional pressure in the event of a surge in the system, Yeager said. It’s also closer to the Ranney collector instead of a mile and a half away — the distance from the Ranney collector to the elevated water tank, he said.
“We’ll have better control of the water system through pressure regulation with this 6,000 gallon tank and air compressor versus what we have,” Yeager told councilors. “We’re not running water a mile and a half before we regulate the pressure.”
Councilors on Monday also approved the project’s $820,000 budget. According to Yeager, about $200,000 of that cost is being paid for through a Bureau of Reclamation grant Elk Valley Rancheria secured. The remaining $620,000, which also includes a $120,000 budget amendment, comes from the city’s water fund.
Finally, the City Council granted City Manager Eric Wier the authority to execute change orders applying to this specific project of up to $120,000.
Councilors earlier in Monday’s meeting granted Wier the authority to approve construction contracts up to $75,000. This is an increase from the $60,000 maximum threshold before City Council approval was required and coincides with California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act threshold increases that took effect at the beginning of the year.
“Even though [this decision] does increase my authority to sign contracts there still has to be a budget approved by the Council for those funds,” Wier said. “It does not come with a blank check. Once that contract goes over this [$75,000] amount, unless explicit authority is granted to me by the Council, which will be an action in regard to our surge tank project, I still need to come back before the Council.”
According to Yeager, the elevated water tank holds 50,000 gallons of water and, at 210 feet above sea level, does a “good job regulating the pressure in our water system.” But he used a power outage in September 2019 to highlight the system’s flaws. According to Yeager, when the power came back on all three pumps at the Ranney collector activated, creating a surge in the system that broke an 18-inch water line.
Another 15-inch water main in the area was constructed in the 1950s, he said.
Once the new tank is installed and staff have determined that it’s working the way it should, Yeager said, the city plans to dismantle the elevated water tank.
“The purpose of the surge tank is to control the water system so we won’t have to have 50,000 gallons there,” he said.
According to Wier, the city often loses connection between the Ranney collector and the elevated tank. When that happens, even if it’s in the middle of the night, the city’s information systems administrator, Fritz Ludemann, and Senior Electrical Mechanical Operations Technician Dan Borges have to restore that connection, Wier said.
“This [surge tank] will put that same system there at the Ranney collector so it runs autonomously from that one site,” he said. “And then it runs almost like a well system at your house where you have that bladder tank and then that supplies pressure into town. We could simplify the system and make it that much more reliable and resilient.”
As for dismantling the elevated tank, Yeager said the city has set aside capital improvement dollars to remove it. The estimated cost to do that is about $100,000, he said.
Wier said once the city is certain the new tank is operating efficiently, staff may put forth a proposal for a contractor to dismantle the older tank.
“Early discussions have indicated that because of the price of the metal and the salvage value, it could be a very low dollar amount to the city to dismantle it,” he said. “That atmosphere may have changed so we’ll have to see what those prices are and come back.”
