by Gerri Peterson The Village of Mullen’s water tower is nearly 40 years old and the time has come to do more than just routine maintenance on it.
Village of Mullen’s residents are being asked to cut back on watering their yards and to conserve water when possible for the next month while the water tower is empty.
The water tower will be repaired inside and outside and also repainted.
During the repairs that the state required, pressure release valves will be hooked up to fire hydrants, with the wells still pushing the water to the distribution system.
The Village of Mullen employees are keeping track of how much water is being used hourly, paying close attention to the pounds per square inch of the water. Utility Superintendent Tony Corbin said if it drops below 21 psi, then they have to chlorinate the water. So far that hasn’t been an issue and they plan to keep it that way.
Last Thursday evening, the first night without the water tower, Corbin said the village used 140,000 gallons of water between 5-10 p.m. and 100,000 gallons between 3-8 a.m. Friday morning. To put that into perspective, the water tower holds 250,000 gallons.
Corbin said he wanted a Mullen Bronco black and gold water tower, but the company doing the work was worried the gold color wouldn’t hold up, so its just going to be “the same boring color” of blue.