The volunteer water tower is easily one of the most recognizable landmarks in Henry County but how many of you know why we have it, or better yet, how it works?
At first glance it would be very easy to assume that water towers exist to store water. After all, they are giant above ground vessels filled with anywhere from hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, like our Volunteer Drive tank, to millions of gallons of water, like our Spruce Street tank.
But whether you are talking about a small water tower in a small rural community or a large municipal water tower, water storage is not its primary function. In fact, if water storage were the only function of a water tower, it would be much cheaper to build a reservoir.
So, then what is the primary function? The primary function of a water tower is to pressurize the water for distribution across the system. Elevating the water high above the pipes that distribute the water throughout the surrounding community ensures that hydrostatic pressure, driven by gravity, forces the water down and through the system. With water towers, we can provide our customers with reliable, adequate and stable water pressure when they turn on the sink, take a shower or use water in any other way.
The design of an above ground water tower helps lower the cost of water distribution for Paris BPU in two ways. First, in allows for centralization of pumping and pressurization and decreases the number of pumping stations needed near the water tower. Second, it allows Paris BPU to pump water up the tower during off-peak energy times to decrease the expense of running the pumps.
