Pilot Point water tower nears completion
By Basil Gist
Staff Writer
The city of Pilot Point gained an eye-catching landmark on Tuesday after raising the bowl on its newest elevated storage tank.
The tank, which will allow the city to store an additional 1 million pressurized potable gallons of water above ground completes the town’s Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for water service.
“This one is specked to complete the CCN,” said Trent Vandagriff, the former Public Works director and current employee of Wall Engineering. “It’s about 10,000 homes in the air. Your Public Works has done an amazing job during the summertime and severe events to sustain that, and this tower is going to help ease strain on the water system.”
Wall Engineering President Brandon Wall, head of the firm who engineered the tank, explained getting the water in the air is crucial from faucet pressure to fire suppression.
“Until you get it up in the air, you can’t use it for fire protection or pressurized service,” Wall said. “This represents multi-day backup water supply in the air under pressure. This is something that will protect the city for years to come. For every gallon that’s in that tank, 1 million gallons can be used for fire protection.”
Current Public Works Director Nestor Ramirez praised his predecessor for his work making the tank a reality and further gave thanks for having him available as he acclimated to his new position with the city.
“It was great and a valuable resource to have him onboard from the beginning conception point,” Ramirez said. “It’s been great. I feel blessed to be a part even at the very end of it.”
As the bowl slowly elevated, Vandagriff spoke more to the tower’s value and location.
“It’s not because we wanted to put it so close to the highway; it’s about utilizing existing infrastructure,” Vandagriff said. “This is one of the few places in town that’s got all new water lines. When the day comes that the town has to transition to surface water as an aspect of what they drink, this is directly here on the highway. We can tie in and do things we need to segregate and proportion to housing developments.”
City Manager Britt Lusk added additional value to the tower as a landmark for the municipality.
“Landmark Structures is the one that constructed this, and they are named appropriately,” Lusk said. “This is something you see whether you’re coming in from north, south, east or sitting on the lake. As we grow and look forward to our water needs here in Pilot Point, this is going to have a huge impact to have this amount of water in elevated storage for us, especially with water being such a major concern for everyone across North Texas.”
His sentiment was mirrored by Wall as well as by the Public Works team.
“A lot of what we do as a water and wastewater engineering firm is invisible—it’s underground, out of sight,” Wall said. “It’s always nice for us to be involved with something that has the visibility of an elevated tank.”
The public event saw attendance from several members of the community as well as council representatives Ray Dane, Chad Major, Elizabeth Jones and Everett Cummings, who joined the community and city staff in watching the tank’s steady ascension.
Pilot Point resident Janice Sheppard said she's "been watching it go up since [she] moved in February," and that as an artist she loved seeing the painting process.
“I’ve been watching this being built,” Pilot Point resident Janice Sheppard said. “When you look out my back window, this is what you see.”
