WATER DEPARTMENT

Water System Overview

Our water supply system is made up of five wells and two surface water treatment plants. The two surface water plants are located on the Tennessee River which has an unlimited supply of untreated water. The combined capacity of the five wells is 16 million gallons per day and the combined capacity of the two surface plants is 54 million gallons per day. This provides a total maximum supply of 70 million gallons per day to the system. Our average daily pumpage is 32.5 million gallons and our maximum day pumpage was 67.6 million gallons on August 18, 2000. This broke the old record of 65 million gallons set on June 29, 1998. In August 2000, we set a record monthly pumpage of over 1.7 billion gallons of water. The System currently serves 69,516 customers inside the Huntsville City Limits, through a distribution system of 1055 miles of water mains, 32 reservoirs, and 32 booster pumping stations.

In addition to our wells and surface plants, we have 32 steel storage reservoirs in the distribution system with a total storage capacity of 49 million gallons. We have (4) 5 million gallon reservoirs, (2) 3 million gallon reservoir, (7) 2 million gallon reservoirs, (5) 1 million gallon reservoirs, and the remainder range in size from 100,000 to 750,000 gallons.

Surface Water

The South Parkway Water Treatment Plant has a design capacity of 24 MGD with approval for high rate filtration to run at approximately 30 MGD. The plant is a conventional design with principal treatment of water including coagulation, clarification, rapid mix media filtration, and disinfection.

The Southwest Water Treatment Plant has a design capacity of 12 MGD with approval for high rate filtration to run at approximately 24 MGD. This plant is of conventional treatment design much like the South Parkway Plant. Treatment includes chemical treatment, coagulation, clarification, sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection.

Ground Water

Existing ground water supplies and their daily capacity are as follows:

All supplies except the Williams Well and Hampton Cove Well are located in the center of the City. The Williams Well, Dallas Well and Lincoln Well are among the largest wells in the Southeast, each having a per day capacity of 4 million gallons or more.

Hydrofluosilicic acid and chlorine are the only chemicals added to Lowe Mill, and Williams Well. The Dallas and Lincoln Wells, two of our oldest wells, have a water treatment facility which treats 9 million gallons per day consisting of disinfection, VOC removal (air towers), coagulation and filtration. The Hampton Cove Well also has a water treatment facility consisting of disinfection, coagulation and filtration.