City water being refilled this week

Its interior has been sandblasted clean and a new liner installed.

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Last January the city of Page hired a contractor to clean the interior of one of its water storage tanks. The job was completed last week and the tank is expected to be refilled with water this week.


This was the first time the inside of the tank had been cleaned in its lifetime.


“It probably should have been done about 25 years ago,” said Bryan Hill, general manager for Page Utility Enterprises. “Water and steel. After they’ve been together long enough you need to take a look at the steel.”


The interior of the steel tanks are covered with an industrial coating to act as a barrier between the steel and the water to slow the rate of rusting and corrosion. After the water was drained from the tank, work crews spent about two months inside it blasting the old coating off the tank’s walls.


The rigors of the sandblasting revealed some weak spots and holes in the water tank’s walls which were repaired after the cleaning process. The old liner and rust was vacuumed up and placed in numerous industrial-sized garbage bags that were hauled away at the end of the process.


After the interior was blasted clean and the weak spots fixed, a second work crew applied a new layer of industrial coating to the walls. During the final phase of the project the walls will be disinfected and then the tank flushed out. Then it will be filled and the water checked for bacteria and other possible toxins before the water is released for public use.


Stripping and resealing the water tank cost around $196,000. The water tank, when filled, holds three million gallons of water.