ESTEVAN — The mechanical and structural work on Estevan’s water tower refurbishment have wrapped up, and now there is just one significant task remaining.
Shane Bucsis, the manager of the city’s water division, said the city started to fill the water tower again on Nov. 9, and then water was sitting in it for bacterial testing and to make sur it was clean and safe for consumption. The tower returned to service on Nov. 15.
“It is part of our core critical infrastructure for our water distribution system,” said Bucsis. “So to have it completed, it will just be something that we don’t need to worry about, hopefully, for the next 60-70 years.”
There have been no issues since the water tower went back into service, he said, and everything is working as expected.
Bucsis pointed out there was a complete overhaul of the electrical, instrumentation, structure and coating in the tower this year. The final tasks included rerunning all of the electrical lines going to the top for communication equipment. The fill valves needed to be set up, and they closed off a hole cut in the side of the building that was cut to create access.
“They had to recoat the area where they welded the hole shut,” Bucsis said.
The biggest challenge they faced came in the spring when it was determined that the beams were deteriorated to the point that they had to be replaced. It was an expensive item because the beams are a critical part of the structure. The cost of the project increased 50 per cent, he said.
Still, the entire cost of the project will be covered by federal gas tax funding, so there won’t be an additional burden for taxpayers.
“All projects that I’ve been doing … during COVID, it’s been challenging to find materials, but the contractors handled it very professionally, gave me plenty of notice and we worked together to make sure that we both knew what was happening,” said Bucsis.
Something that should be on a shelf somewhere took three weeks to arrive.
The stand pipe and the drain line have been replaced. The beams have been repaired on the upper section of the bowl. A new platform ladder has been installed, and the upper bowl has been spray coated.
The exterior has been painted with a different shade of grey, and the familiar “Estevan” letters are back on the tower.
There is just one task remaining: the addition of lights outside of the building.
“Instead of painting the water tower different colours or funky colours, we’re putting LED spotlights on the bottom that will shine up the base that we’ll be able to change the colours on,” said Bucsis.
The lights were discussed early in the project, and the colours can be changed for special occasions, such as the colour of an awareness month. Or they could use Christmas colours for December.
“It’s completely programmable what the colours would be,” said Bucsis.
It will be up to the city’s marketing manager to decide on the specific occasions.
The lights were supposed to be installed earlier this year but were back-ordered due to supply chain issues. They didn’t arrive until Nov. 4, when the rest of the project was nearing completion. It’s difficult to install them because the ground is frozen, and the person who would complete the final configuration is not available until January.
Had they arrived in the summer or early fall, it wouldn’t have been an issue, Bucsis said.
“Doing installation like this in winter, it just takes a whole lot longer to complete,” said Bucsis. “And in terms of the contractor to do the final setup, they’re on a tight schedule for the Christmas season.”
Bucsis noted there will be some fencing work and cleanup of the grounds in the spring.
The city received extra funds through the federal government’s gas tax that helped cover the overages.
“During COVID, the federal government had doubled up the payments of the gas tax funding, and the extra revenue from that went into the overages for the project,” said Bucsis.
