WESTFIELD – The Water Commission voted last night to approve a change to the contract for replacing the water main carrying water from Granville Reservoir down to the treatment plant located in Southwick.
The board also approved an 83-day extension to the project, which in addition to installing a new pipeline, includes installation of a hydroelectric turbine in the treatment plant to produce power to operate the facility.
R.H. White of Auburn, which built the treatment plant in 1993, was awarded the original $1,748,926 contract for the pipeline replacement and turbine installation effort. The change order approved last night was the fourth, adding a total of $438,000 to the project as it was modified because of conditions found during construction.
The contractor used pipe-bursting technology in the upper half of Granville Gorge, while traditional trenching methods which are more cost-effective approach, was used for the lower half of the project. The purpose of the project is to replace a 14-inch pipe, originally installed in 1890, with a 16-inch high-density plastic pipe.
The original pipe limits the flow of water and is leaking, while the proposed pipeline is projected to increase flow to the treatment plant, located in Southwick, by a million gallons a day, substantially reducing the demand for well water.
Water Resource Engineer Charles Darling said that several alterations were made to the pipeline and treatment plan to increase capacity. The plant was designed to treat 4 million gallons of water a day, but the old pipeline could not deliver that amount of water.
“The old pipeline could not transmit that flow. We’re hoping that, when this project is completed, the plant will be running at full capacity,” Darling said. “The plan was taken offline a year ago, the first week of April in 2013.”
The 83-day extension to complete the work will mean that the treatment plant will be back on line in June. The project is financed through a federal low-interest loan, part of which is forgiven over time, administered through a state revolving fund program. The state had approved up to $2,357,000 for the project.
The grant program required the city to have a “green” energy element. The option adopted to meet that requirement was to install turbines inside the treatment plant to take advantage of the “head” of water rushing down through the pipeline from the reservoir. The power generated would be sufficient to operate the plant, furthering reducing the cost of producing the city’s drinking water.
Many city residents, especially in the Western Avenue area, have complained about the water quality after the treatment plant was taken offline and residents began to receive well water.
“Well water is hard water, while water from the treatment plant is soft water,” Darling said.
