Emporia’s Public Works Department is about to launch a major improvement project at the Water Treatment Plant. Emporia, Kansas is upgrading ozone equipment as part of the systems ozone filtration system.
Director Frank Abart, KVOE’s Newsmaker II guest Monday, said equipment is starting to gather at the plant, 24th and Industrial, as workers prepare to replace the current ozone filtration system. Abart says ozone is the primary disinfectant for the water supply, but this is a project whose time has come.
Preliminary work begins next week, with the pouring of concrete pads and addition of pipes. After that, one of the current two filtration generators will be taken offline for replacement. Once that work is finished, the other filtration system will then go down to be replaced.
So-called “substantial completion” is slated for March or April. Close to a month’s worth of testing is also part of the process before everything is officially ready. Cost is around $3 million. Abart anticipates a 15- to 20-percent reduction just in electrical costs once the upgrades are finished.
The goal, according to Abart, is to make sure residents in Emporia — and further downstream who enjoy the city’s water — don’t notice any differences in taste as the process continues. The city typically takes water samples for state, national and now international taste tests in January. Emporia has consistently won the state’s water taste tests and now fares very well nationally and internationally even with the old filtration equipment.
