Crossville’s Meadow Park water treatment plant operating within state standards, but officials say aging filters are creating a risk the city needs to address before another failure occurs.
City of Crossville Director of Water Resources Joe Kerley told City Council during a special called meeting Thursday the plant has experienced significant mechanical problems in recent years. A filter failure in 2023 required an emergency repair costing approximately $231,000.
“Either direction you go it’s still going to take time to do this,” Kerley said, “So when you’re talking about, you know, holding your breath and possibly crossing your fingers, I mean I don’t sleep easy at night lot of nights worrying about that phone call I’m gonna get from the water plant cause one of my filters went out.”
Kerley said another filter failure would reduce Meadow Park to two-thirds of its capacity. Contractors who have worked on the system have recommended the city move as quickly as possible toward replacing the aging equipment.
“We could have four years, we might not have six months before they start springing leaks and popping holes,” Kerley said. “One that one tab was that big around causes us unsafe drinking water at that point. If we have to run with one tab off and forced to run that way we’d have to run under a boil water notice for an extended amount of time.”
Crossville is preparing for a pilot project that will test three types of membrane filtration simultaneously. Kerley said January is now the earliest the equipment is expected to arrive, with testing to run for about two months.
The results will help determine whether Crossville replaces the existing sand-and-anthracite filtration equipment or moves toward newer membrane technology. Kerley said the city’s existing filtration method remains an accepted treatment method, but membranes could provide greater tolerance when problems occur during the treatment process.
“The membranes are crazy technology with crazy advanced stuff, we get better turbidity removals, better swing in mishaps happening stuff going down at the plant, a misfeed on coagulant you have you have more space for error with the membranes,” Kerley said.
Kerley said replacing the stainless-steel bottoms in the existing filters has been estimated at approximately $2 million. He said even replacing the current system with similar equipment could take two to three years because of engineering, state approval, bidding and equipment lead times.
A membrane system could carry a significantly larger upfront price. Kerley said approximately $20 million has been discussed, but the city does not yet have the pilot results and cost analysis needed to determine which option makes the most financial sense.
Kerley said membrane technology could reduce the amount of treated water lost through the existing filtration process. He said the plant can overflow 600 gallons per minute of mostly treated water for up to an hour when a filter is being washed, in addition to water used for backwashing.
“That’s sellable water so your cost savings analysis 2 million versus the possible 20 million and like me and Matt said depends on how the math comes back from the pilot it could have a buyback power of 10 years to pay for itself on savings cost from just wasted water alone,” Kerley said.
City Engineer Tim Begley said the decision has not been made.
Begley said an engineering analysis will use the pilot data to compare the present value of replacing the existing sand filters with similar equipment against moving to ceramic membrane technology. The study will also examine how either option could accommodate a future expansion of the plant.
Crossville also has additional water-production capacity at its Holiday Hills plant if Meadow Park loses a filter. Begley said he believes Holiday Hills could make up the difference rather than requiring the city to pump raw water.
Kerley said Holiday Hills has aging infrastructure of its own. Its filter media has been in place for about 14 years and will need to be replaced and its underdrains inspected as the city plans future water-system improvements.