When you’re a rural water district serving a vast area with limited resources and staff, you need to be able to trust your equipment. You want to know your tanks and pumps are humming 24/7, month to month and year to year because you don’t have the time to constantly check on them.
The Aquastore® tank from CST was designed with that in mind and it’s the preferred choice of districts like Millstone in southern Illinois. Ken Richards, district manager, needs to ensure every single one of his 2,400 customers, spread throughout a 2,080-square-mile area, is satisfied. Proper storage is critical to water quality and Richards relies on Aquastore because of its durability, reliability and low maintenance.
In fact, Millstone has an Aquastore tank that’s over 20 years old. It’s performed so well they opted to buy another one.
“We took [the first tank] offline for retooling and decided to build a second tank to meet our long-term demand,” said Richards. “We put the new tank online to handle storage while the old one was undergoing maintenance.”
Richards marvels that workers didn’t have to detach a single panel for retooling, which saves time and money - as does not having to repaint.
“Typically, repainting a tank has to be done in the summer and you need to plan for roughly three months of down time,” said Dave Hemauer, project manager at Cady Aquastore.”But it took only nine days, after the tank was drained and washed out, to rehab and make improvements to the older Aquastore tank. After a few days of sealer curing time, the tank was ready for sanitizing and bacteriological testing and back in service.”
Refined metals and concrete break down or oxidize over time. Corrosion can impact the life of a tank, so the materials used in the tank’s construction make a difference in its longevity. The folks at Millstone are counting on both of their Aquastore tanks to withstand extreme weather conditions and continual use.
“We prefer the Aquastore [tank] because it’s impervious to the weather and the chemicals in water,” said Joe Boyke, project manager at Clarida & Ziegler Engineering, which is consulting on Millstone’s expansion. “I’ve built 35 to 40 Aquastore tanks in my career and I’ve never seen corrosion, cracking or failure like you see with [other materials].”
The glass-fused-to-steel system was designed in anticipation of the wear and tear a liquid storage tank will undergo in its lifetime. By constructing a tank in this way, CST has devised a solution that requires far less maintenance over time.
“Aquastore beats other tanks when it comes to construction,” said Andy Rainwater, project manager at Clarida & Ziegler Engineering. “There’s no need for scaffolding because all work can be performed from the ground and the panels fit easily together.”
Richards added, “We’re rehabbing our treatment plant and the Aquastore tanks will be the centerpiece.”
CST Industries is exhibiting at WEFTEC.16, Booth 3616. For more information, visit www.cstindustries.com.
