Pickens Officials Celebrate Water Plant Upgrade

Pickens officials are celebrating the completion of a project that has been in the works for a long time.

On Thursday, officials cut the ribbon on the upgrades to the city's water treatment plant.

Mayor David Owens has been mayor for 10 years and served on city council for three years prior to that.

“We were talking about it when I was on council, upgrading the water plant,” Owens said.

The plant was built in 1956 and needed some significant work to comply with regulations.

Officials are not only celebrating the completion of the upgrade, but its cost.

The project was originally estimated to cost $16 million.

City leaders considered several options.

“We worked over the years, trying to figure out what we needed to do with the water plant, if we wanted to keep it, where to upgrade it, how much we wanted to spend on it, to make sure our water quality's fine, our reservoir's fine,” Owens said. “Council's done a lot of work on it.”

Water plant employees and operators had to do “a lot of the legwork over the years to help us decide if we wanted to keep it, what we wanted to do, what needed to be repaired.”

In 2009, there was an opportunity to receive stimulus money for the project, but the city would have been required to apply for $10 million in loans in order to receive $6 million in grant funding.

City leaders balked at committing Pickens and its taxpayers to a 40-year loan. Council rejected the stimulus opportunity and began looking at other options, including tying on with other water providers.

The city hired the engineering firm of Hulsey McCormick & Wallace to design the plans. That firm was able to scale back the plans to meet the plants' needs at a lower cost.

“We had to work through some issues with the design,” Owens said.

Firm CEO Wes Hulsey thanked the city for its confidence in Hulsey McCormick & Wallace.

“We are privileged to serve the City of Pickens … and we hope to serve you for many years to come

The $4 million upgrade is still a lot cheaper than going with other water treatment companies, such as Greenville Water, Owens said.

“It's still quality water for the City of Pickens. This is going to be a lot cheaper for us,” he said. “Not cheaper water as far as quality, but cheaper in price.”