City proposes water projects

Jacksboro City Manager Mike Smith discussed some areas of focus for the utility fund during Monday’s regular city council meeting.

Smith said preliminary projections for revenue for water sales for the next budget year are lower than the current year.

“Last year, when the oil and gas business was going pretty strong, we had some pretty strong bulk water sales,” he said. “Those have come down a little bit. Also, it’s been raining for it seems like a year now, so our water demand has come down for people watering their grass.

“We’re going to be okay this fiscal year, but we’re going to lower our projected revenue on the water side and on the wastewater side by about $100,000.”

Possible projects for the next fiscal year Smith highlighted include two to reduce chlorine disinfection byproducts.

The city sent notices to water customers last week outlining the situation. 

“One of the primary causes of that is we have to put in more chlorine because we’ve had to treat a lot more organic materials in the water,” Smith said. “As the water sits there in our clarifiers and our flock tank, it’s got direct sunlight and it eats up our chlorine and it causes us to have to put more chlorine in on the back end.”

After consulting with other water treatment plants, the City is looking into a cover for the clarifier and flock tank at the water treatment plant to reduce direct sunlight.

One option is a mesh material at a cost of approximately $65,000.

Another project is to install a system to circulate the water in the water tower on the west side of town. Smith said such a system would cost between $50,000 and $80,000.

Both projects are proposed to reduce the amount of chlorine needed to disinfect the drinking water and thereby reducing byproducts.

To read the complete article, see the July 1 edition of the Herald-Gazette.