GWA finishes construction of 2 million-gallon tank

by Jolene Toves

Guam - It was in 2005 that the Guam Waterworks Authority's one-million gallon water tank in barrigada collapsed, damaging a nearby 2-million gallon water tank and saturating an entire neighborhood.

Three homes were damaged and residents had to be evacuated.  Now eight years later construction is complete on Guam's first pre-stressed concrete water tank.  Dubbed technology of the new millennium this reservoir will hold 2 million gallons of Guam's water.

Heidi Ballendorf, GWA Spokesperson, said, "I think some people remember the tank that fell down we've replaced it with new and improved seismic resistance so that means earthquakes we should be good typhoons we'll definitely be great we'll have water flowing."

Built by California DN Tanks this new state of the art cement reservoir will provide water to Barrigada, Mangilao and Dededo. It is also the first ever concrete in GWA's inventory. "One of the great benefits is we are using concrete instead of steel so basically the concrete lasts a lot longer this tank has a hundred year service life so you're not going to get the corrosion that you have," Ballendorf said.

But before this concrete tank can be filled with water, today island media were given a tour of the new structure  and watched as it was put to the test. "What we are going to be performing today is the pre-stressing machine that you see out here its basically going to take a 7 wire galvanized strand and wrap this strand around the exterior of the tank and put the tank into permanent compression," she said.

The strand will be wrapped three to four times around the tank to show the engineers and contractors how the machine operates. The concrete tank cost over $5.5 million which Ballendorf says should be fully operational by October.