Concrete pours for the Charles City clearwell project

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Thursday was a big day for the one million gallon clearwell tank project.

Work began earlier this year on the $4.5 million project designed to construct a new million gallon water storage tank near the city’s water treatment plant.

“It’s going great,” said City Administrator Steve Diers. “We’re making a big box and putting water in it.”

After weeks of excavating on the site, the concrete began to flow early in the morning on Thursday, June 15. Croell Inc. started work at 4 a.m. for a long day of pouring roughly 900 cubic yards of concrete to create the base of the underground storage tank. With a typical concrete truck able to carry about 10 cubic yards of concrete, Croell’s fleet of trucks had to cycle in and out about 90 times throughout the process.

What was poured on Thursday will serve as the foundation for the project, setting a base slab for the walls, baffles, and roof to be built on throughout the summer. The city expects the addition to the water treatment plant to be complete this fall.

“It’s right on schedule,” said Diers. “Everything is progressing as we hoped.”

Creating the new water tank will increase the city’s capacity to provide water to homes and businesses, particularly as the industrial presence in Charles City continues to expand. The additional water capacity will also serve to make the city’s water treatment plant run more efficiently, allowing for a more consistent flow for the system.

The current half-million gallon capacity of the water plant creates a bottleneck in the system, forcing the plant to frequently shut down and start up again as it runs out of water to process.

“Our pumps and our high service pumps are on and off every hour and a half,” said Water Superintendent Cory Spieker. “With the added capacity we’ll be able to run more consistent and efficient for the treatment process.”