Choctaw Utilities, Choctaw Lake Ohio

Your community, your water company

New Water Plant

WATER PLANT MONTHY UPDATE – OCTOBER 2019

New Tonka filter skid – this is the heart of the plant. These filters replace our current filters, which are over 50 years old. State of the art technology with air added to backwash for more complete cleaning. Computer monitored and controlled push button operation.

Fall is in the air and things are progressing well on the construction of the new Choctaw Lake Water Treatment plant.  We began work back in the spring, but heavy rains during the early part of summer delayed our project by 40 days.  As the summer progressed and the ground finally began to dry, things really started to move forward at a steady pace.  

Two chamber detention tank is in place.  Internal coating is only thing left to apply.

As you can see from our most current pictures, the new plant is really beginning to take shape.  Several milestones worth mentioning:

  1. The new filter skid arrived two weeks ago.  The filter skid arrived via truck from Minnesota and was craned as an assembly into the new building 
  2. The contact detention tank is complete except for coatings, and the lagoon is complete.     
Roof trusses in process of being installed.  Will be under roof very soon.

Our goal is to complete construction of the new plant in late 2019 or early 2020.  As part of our contract with our general contractor, they are required to complete the project by the end of February.  We hope it will be sooner than that, but understand that with any major construction project, there are sometimes delays that are beyond the control of the contractor or Choctaw Utilities.  As long as nature keeps cooperating, we anticipate no issues.

Filter skid inside new treatment building. 

As promised, we are building a high-quality, state of the art, water treatment facility and it really does not matter if it’s opened in December, January, or February.  We are focused on ensuring quality.  We are very pleased with the contractors and their dedication to our project.  They have been very responsive and the work they’ve completed is top quality.   

Chemical room floor ready for concrete pour, scheduled for today.  By the time you see this, the pour will be complete.

We will continue to post updates to keep the community informed as to the progress of this very important project. 

Iron lagoon is complete.  Iron removed from water is discharged here.

The next quarterly meeting of the Choctaw Utilities board of directors will be held on Monday, October 14 at 7:00 in the conference room at the lodge.

New Water Plant Update

Grading the new Choctaw Utilities plant site

The board of directors of Choctaw Utilities would like to take a moment and update all residents of Choctaw Lake regarding the construction of the new water plant for our community.  The process of research-discussion-funding-engineering has been taking place for several years and we are happy to report that work on the plant began back in March and has been ongoing.

As you all know, we have been experiencing an extremely wet spring and early summer.  Since this is the time of the project when most of the site work is scheduled, the weather has made it very difficult for our contractor, Capital City Mechanical, to do this site work.  Though they are a few weeks behind because of this weather, they are still making progress.

Work on Choctaw Utilities new water plant continues to progress

In the last 8-10 weeks, our contractor has graded the new plant site, increased the size of the lagoon, and placed new pipes underground that will transport water between the various treatment processes.  This piping was pressure tested and inspected before being backfilled to ensure reliability.  Currently we are waiting for the weather to cooperate so that we can begin forming the footings for the detention tank and new plant.  Every day it rains the trenches that are dug fill with water and make work impossible.  Once we get the foundation in place and the building dried in, the rest of the work can proceed no matter what the weather is doing.

We have spoken on several occasions with our contractor to have him make sure he communicates with his subcontractors that the speed limit is 25.  We are also pleased to report our general contractor, Capital City Mechanical, has been pleasant and easy to work with.  Their subcontractors are chomping at the bit to get started once the weather breaks.    

As always, the CU Board is available for questions.

Dave