DAYHOFF: Cutting a ribbon on history at the Westminster Water Treatment PlantBottom photo: April 24, 2008 Westminster, state, county and industry officials cut the ribbon at grand opening ceremonies for the new Westminster Cranberry Water Treatment Plant. From right to left: Ben Movahed from Watek Engineering, Westminster Common Council president Roy Chiavacci, Dr. Robert M. Summers, deputy secretary from the State Department of the Environment, Westminster mayor Tom Ferguson, Carroll County commissioners’ president Julia Gouge, Westminster Common Council members Dr. Robert Wack and Kevin Utz. Photo by Kevin Dayhoff (20090424 NewWTPribbon (18)b and 20090424 NewWTPribbon (24)b)
(c) Kevin Dayhoff, Posted on
http://www.explorecarroll.com/ 4/29/09 photos by Kevin Dayhoff picture dates: April 24, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/pcae4fDAYHOFF: Cutting a ribbon on history at the Westminster Water Treatment Plant Published April 29, 2009 by Westminster Eagle ... prosper. Note: next week's column will review a more in-depth history of the story of the early Westminster water systems. Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster, where he served as mayor from 2001 to 2005. When he is not enjoying a great glass of Westminster ... ...
Dayhoff: How water drove the growth Westminster ... and still does Published May 4, 2009 by Carroll Eagle, Westminster Eagle ... 200 years after our community banded together to maintain a steady and reliable water supply.
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Last week’s ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new Westminster water treatment plant put the city on the cutting edge of water.
Carroll and Westminster officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting April 24 at the Westminster Cranberry Water Treatment Plant, on Lucabaugh Mill Road just north of Westminster.
Mayor Tom Ferguson and Dr. Robert M. Summers, deputy secretary from the State Department of the Environment, shared remarks and recognized folks in attendance for working hard to make the state-of-the-art facility a reality.
Westminster council president Roy Chiavacci, councilmembers Kevin Utz and Dr. Robert Wack and Board of County Commissioners President Julia Gouge watched with well-deserved pride.
Among the folks recognized were Westminster city administrator Marge Wolf, engineer Mike Matov, representatives from Watek Engineering Corporation (who designed the facility), Conewago Enterprises and Siemens Water Technologies.
According to Kelly Martin, the city's information and communications specialist, the design of the plant, by Watek Engineering Corporation, took into account future growth capacity, while minimizing operation and maintenance costs.
“The Plant is designed to currently supply 2.75 million gallons per day (MGD) of potable water into the City's distribution system,” said data provided by Martin.
Simply increasing the number of membrane modules — part of the technology noted as “best available” by regulatory agencies — could increase the plant's capacity to 5 million gallons per day.
Although construction of the new treatment facility started May 2007, the story of water in Carroll and Westminster has its beginnings in the 1700s.
Indeed, the very spot upon which the new water facility is now located has a history that dates back to 1795.
According to information researched at the Historical Society of Carroll County by historian Richard Hyson, one of the earliest references to Winter's Mill — which now also lends its name to the high school — can be found as early as 1795 when it a grain mill and sawmill operated by Ledwick Wampler.
Airhart Winters took possession around 1860 and the mill can be located on the Lake, Griffing & Stevenson 1877 “Illustrated Atlas of Carroll County, Maryland.”
The property is described as being that of “Airhart Winters, Farmer and Manufacturer of Flour, Feed &c. Custom Sawing and Grinding done promptly. One and a half miles east of Westminster.”
Unfortunately, a fire around 1960 destroyed the adjacent mill master's home and all the records of the early days of the mill and the water company perished.
The mill master's house was located on the exact spot where the new treatment plant is now situated.
In 1920, the old Cranberry Water Pumping Station was constructed by Westminster Consolidated Utilities Company at the Old Winter's Mill, taking advantage of a millrace there to bring water into the plant from a millpond upstream.
Water in Westminster was supplied by a private company from 1883 to 1964. The city purchased the Maryland Water Company, a successor to the Westminster Consolidated Utilities Company, in 1964 for $961,792 and sold approximately $1.45 million worth of 2.5 percent bonds to pay for the system and improvements and expansions.
Compare that to the $12.3 million cost of the new water treatment plant; most of which was borrowed from the Maryland Water Quality Bond Fund through the Maryland Department of the Environment at 1 percent for 29 years.
When the water system was purchased 45 years ago, Westminster consisted of 477 acres and had a population of 6,123 compared to approximately 4,000 acres and 17,000 folks today.
Today, the water system supplies more than 33,000 people with water when you include the households it serves outside the city limits.
Over the past decade, community leaders have been grappling with how to continue to supply fresh drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities for a growing population and meet increased (and unfunded) federal and state water quality mandates.
The history of the new water treatment plant really began in the 1990s when Ken Yowan was the mayor of Westminster.
Jeff Glass, the Westminster director of public works, recently helped refresh my memory about the early discussions about the need to build a new facility.
“Well, it all started a long long time ago” with a quality control process called a CPE, comprehensive performance evaluation, recalled Glass. The purpose of the CPE is “to find weaknesses and areas for potential improvement.”
The city's first CPE was completed by by Lenny Gold in conjunction with MCET, the Maryland Center for Environmental Training.
“Jake Bair was running (MCET) at the time,” said Glass.
Bair has since retired but Gold is still in the consulting business, based in Easton. Glass said “both are really good guys. ... Lenny is the one who taught me how to operate a treatment plant.”
In approximately 1998, the CPE identified that the city would one day need to upgrade its water treatment process to provide additional barriers to guard against Cryptosporidium, Giardia, bacteria, turbidity and suspended solids in the water system.
Discussions and long range planning continued for years. When I took office as the mayor in May 2001, my predecessor, Mayor Yowan, and I had a series of transition discussions and the need for improvements to the then-80-year-old treatment plant was one of the many items reviewed.
In January 2002, $565,000 was included in the capital budget for design and construction of the filter re-bedding and preliminary plant design.
As challenges were identified, “it was then that we went out to bid for an evaluation of the current plant. The concept was to decide what was the best option(s) available to us, to take us into the future,” recalled Glass.
Enter Ben Movahed from Watek Engineering.
Movahed, along with Sophia Liskovitch, also with Watek, and a team of city officials including Glass, then-water treatment plant superintendent Paula Martin and her successor Bret Grossnickle, Tom Owens, all the water treatment plant operators, Tom Beyard, then the city's planning and public works director, and (Westminster engineer Mike) Matov , checked through the old plant with the concept of upgrading.
An additional $300.000 was allocated in February 2003 and another $300,000 in March 2004 as complications and challenges were identified in the complicated process of replacing an old water treatment system that dated back to the 1920s.
It was ultimately determined that upgrading the old plant was not a cost effective way to move forward and the idea to build a new plant firmly took root.
However, to further complicate the matter, it was also determined that the existing sand filtration media in the old plant needed to the re-bedded — changed-out — before a new plant could be constructed and brought on-line.
Another complication was researching what membrane filtering system to use. Since this technology is cutting edge, few existing examples could be studied.
This required research trips to several of the few existing facilities in the world. One was in England. Another in California and yet a third was in Toronto.
It was the facility above Toronto that proved especially trying as Glass recalls that the trip coincided with weather which saw the temperatures plummet to 40 degrees below zero.
Yet even more complicating was determining whether to use the “Zenon” filter or the “MEMCOR” filter.
When the investigation and research began, both were manufactured by stand-alone companies.
Then MEMCOR was purchased by U.S. Filter, which was subsequently purchased by Siemens.
Zenon was purchased by GE.
By 2007 drawings and planning process were complete and the city was able to begin construction of the new facility in May 2007.
The ribbon cutting ceremony last Friday witnessed the completion of the first full scale membrane filtering water treatment plant in Maryland.
The story of the plant is like much of the history of Westminster — a story of teamwork, careful planning, thinking outside of the box and adapting to change.
Perhaps the only thing more important than water in Carroll County history is how the community has always come together to meet hardships and challenges and adapt to the changes.
By working together we can easily meet the current water challenges and prosper.
Note: next week's column will review a more in-depth history of the story of the early Westminster water systems.
Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster, where he served as mayor from 2001 to 2005.
When he is not enjoying a great glass of Westminster water, he may be reached at kevindayhoff AT gmail.com.
http://explorecarroll.com/opinion/2863/dayhoff-cutting-ribbon-history-westminster-water-treatment-plant/http://tinyurl.com/pcae4f20090429 Cutting the ribbon on the new treatment plant weked
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