The Water System
The Utilities Board of the City of Sylacauga ("the Board") owns, maintains and operates a water system consisting of two (2) wells, two water supply reservoirs (Lake Howard and Lake Virginia), a conventional surface water treatment plant, water transmission and distribution mains, six (6) water booster pumping stations and ten (10) water storage tanks.
The Board currently supplies an average of 3.2 million gallons of potable water per day to 7,550 residential, commercial and industrial customers in and contiguous to the City of Sylacauga. The maximum peak demand for potable water during 2009 was 4.4 million gallons per day.
The primary source of potable water is the Pine Grove Well. This well was constructed in 2009 and placed in service on January 12, 2010. The Pine Grove Well has a capacity of 2.16 million gallons per day or 1500 gallons per minute. Park Well located behind the Chamber of Commerce near the tennis courts has a capacity of .5 million gallons per day or 300 gallons per minute.
The Lake Howard Water Treatment Plant is now operated as a peaking plant and is used when the water demand exceeds the capacity of the wells.
Lake Howard has a water storage capacity of 1,075 million gallons while Lake Virginia has a storage capacity of 552 million gallons. The “safe” combined yield of Lake Howard and Lake Virginia is approximately 9.944 million gallons per day during extreme 120-days drought conditions.
The ten storage tanks in the system have a combined storage capacity of 7.68 million gallons. The distribution system consists of approximately 253 miles of pipe ranging in size from 2 inch to 24 inch in diameter. There are 763 fire hydrants located within the system.