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C. Wayne Combee Water Treatment Plant. Grand opening
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In April of 2007 The Water Utilities Department officially opened the C. Wayne Combee Water treatment plant.
The new facility is named after former Director of Water Utilities, C. Wayne Combee who retired in 2002 after leading the department for over 20 years. Combee was very instrumental in getting this plant built. It is designed to provide system reliability and water for future development near Highway 33 far into the next decade.
The existing Williams Water Treatment Plant
on West Bella Vista Street, which began operations in April of 1983 has 10 million gallon tank storage capacity and can treat up to 51 million gallons of water per day for over 170,000 customers.
The new Combee plant is slightly smaller. It is designed with a 5 million gallon storage tank and 8 million gallon, per day, treatment capacity , and is connected directly into the Lakeland water distribution system. This capability allows the Combee plant to assist the Williams plant in providing the daily water needs of all customers daily or provide back-up pressure in times of crisis or necessity.
As Chuck Garing, Director of Water Utilities tells us the ability to keep water flowing is important for many reasons:
“People may not realize that the water that we’re treating at the Combee or Williams plant ; either they’re drinking it; it’s available at fire hydrants for putting out fires, or in sprinkler systems in the schools to protect their children in case of fires or is used to water their lawns. So, we’re not only concerned about l protecting the health of our customers but also their public safety, , and helping to maintain their landscaping .”
The Combee Plant was proposed and conceptualized in the late 1980’s and is designed to meet the needs of development in the eastern portion of the service area including the demands of the new University of South Florida campus soon to be built in east Lakeland.
The official opening of the Combee Plant coincides with the activation of an on-site well which signals completion of the plant construction. This well, because of its on-site location, is expected to help the city with its ongoing water use permit applications.
According to Tom Mattiacci, Manager, of Water Utility Engineering, there are many things that go into making the water Utility a reliable steward of Lakeland’s water resources,
“. We now have two drinking water plants, we have two wastewater plants with a third soon to be constructed. So we are committed to treating water as it comes from the environment and as we return it to the environment.
We have hundreds and hundreds of miles of pipeline, and we maintain this everyday to avoid spills that could affect the environment.
We’re a reliable utility, Lakeland’s choice for water service.”
The both water treatment plants are operated, 24 hours a day seven days a week, by state licensed and certified water plant operators. Their job is to provide safe, drinking water to system customers in strict accordance with Federal, State and local Health Department regulations through the collection & laboratory analysis of water samples.
They must also maintain chemical feed systems, treatment processes, pressure and flows to certain prescribed conditions.
The main message that Chuck Garing and his team would like to emphasize is conservation:
“At the end of 2007 and beginning strongly in 2008 we’re going to offer some volunteer programs where the utility will help fund the replacement of old toilets that require a lot of water per flush. We’re going to offer $100 to help them replace those old units with low volume toilets. We’re also going to be providing water saving devices that can go in kitchens and bathrooms. Those are the type of things we want our customers to be involved in.
As far as what we’re doing, we’re always monitoring the areas that we draw water from making sure that we’re not impacting wetlands, or private wells, we want to be good neighbors and conservethis valuable resourse by working with our customers, because they’re the ones that can control how they use the water and will have the greatest impact on how well the City of Lakeland can serve into the future.”
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