HCWSA now prepares for Water Treatment Plant
McDonough, GA, March 3, 2004 -- While construction on Henry County's newest reservoir continues, the accompanying water treatment facility is set to break ground and move from design to construction as well.
Contract documents were signed this week for construction of the Henry County Water & Sewerage Authority's (HCWSA) Tussahaw Water Treatment Facility. The authority recently awarded Winter Construction Company, Inc. the low bid of $26.5 million to build the water plant, which will initially provide 13 million gallons of finished drinking water per day (MGD) to HCWSA customers upon its completion.
The new water plant is also designed to be able to expand its drinking water production capacity to 26 MGD if necessary in the future.
The rough-grading of the plant site is nearly complete and the preconstruction conference for the project is already scheduled, says Garry Garretson, consulting engineer from Stantec who is overseeing the project for the Authority.
The Notice of Intent (NOI) to proceed with construction, accompanied by the permit application fee, has been forwarded to the state EPD.
In addition to building the 13 MGD water treatment plant adjacent to the new Tussahaw Reservoir currently under construction, the HCWSA is also in the process of designing a transmission main that will run from the new Tussahaw Plant to the existing East Lake Pumping Station.
This portion of the Tussahaw project will feature 48" and 24" ductile iron pipes that will be put in place for distributing the finished drinking water produced at the plant to HCWSA customers who live and work in the third fastest growing county in the nation. Design of the transmission main is 98 percent complete, and work has begun to secure an estimated 160 easements that will be necessary for the project.
As the design of the transmission main and water treatment facility move into the first phases of construction, the current work to build the 1,466-acre Tussahaw Reservoir is progressing very well, commented Skip Layton, Stantec engineer and project manager of the Tussahaw Reservoir construction for the HCWSA.
While timber companies are nearly through clearing the site, the Authority has requested that they not clear certain areas of the proposed reservoir pool, so HCWSA engineers and biologists can make preparations to possibly establish a fishery on the Tussahaw Reservoir in the future.
As for progress on the hard construction, the horizontal concrete should be complete next week, weather permitting, on the reservoir's emergency spillway. Once the last pour of the horizontal phase is done, vertical concrete work will commence immediately, added Layton.
"Other than having to work around some extremely wet weather conditions, things have moved along very smoothly on all aspects of the Tussahaw construction," says Lindy Farmer, general manager of the HCWSA. "We knew we had a good team going into this project, but now that construction is beginning on the water treatment plant, we are even more excited about what this will mean to the people of Henry County ."
