The Herculaneum Board of Aldermen voted unanimously Nov. 20 to enter into agreements with Utility Service Co. Inc to renovate and then maintain the McNutt Street and Joachim Avenue water towers. The city already has a maintenance plan with the same company for the water tower on Scenic Drive.
It will cost $616,376 to renovate the McNutt tower and $423,328 for the Joachim tower, with payments for each project spread out over three years, City Administrator Jim Kasten said.
After those three years of payments, yearly maintenance costs will be $24,829 for the McNutt tower and $24,144 for the tower on Joachim, he said.
The city already pays a $19,125 yearly maintenance fee for the Scenic tower, Kasten said.
He said the McNutt and Joachim towers are approximately 20 years old and need a lot of refurbishing before they go on a regular yearly maintenance plan.
Kasten said the McNutt tower will be refurbished some time in 2024. That work will include sandblasting the tower inside and out down to bare metal; checking welds; repainting the outside and inside; checking all ladders and lights; inspecting it; refilling the tank; and testing the water. Also the tower will get a new mechanical mixer, which will ensure that chlorine levels are evenly distributed throughout the water tank.
“I think most cities have their water towers on these maintenance programs,” he said. “And you have to get things back to zero as far as anything that’s wrong with the tower before you really start these maintenance programs.”
He said the work on the McNutt tower would most likely take several months but should not negatively impact residents’ access to water.
Kasten said summer is the peak time for water usage, and he doesn’t believe the work on the tower will take place during that time.
He said the Joachim tower most likely will be refurbished in 2026.
“That way the cost gets broken down so the payments are not all at once.”
As long as the city pays the yearly maintenance fee, it should not need to pay large renovation charges again, Kasten said.
In addition to the renovation at both towers, Kasten said an 8-inch fill pipe and a 10-inch fill pipe need replaced at the McNutt tower because they have been leaking in recent years.
Kasten said the replacement of those pipes is the reason the cost is higher to refurbish the McNutt tower than the one on Joachim.
Both towers are approximately the same size and have 400,000-gallon tanks.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources recommends draining and washing out water towers every two to five years, depending on silt buildup.
According to the maintenance agreement, after the towers are refurbished, they will be drained, cleaned, inspected and refilled every two years.
Kasten believes the towers will be set for that maintenance on alternate years so the two towers are not down at the same time.
He estimated that a tower will be offline for about a week during its bi-yearly maintenance cleanings.
Kasten said the cost of the water tower improvements will be covered with money from the water fund.
“Whenever we settled the bonds for the water plant, part of that agreement was we paid 10 percent more for the bonds and that was set in an escrow account. When the bonds were cleared, we had $595,000. So we’re basically using that to kind of jump-start this whole process.”