Water tower falling down

Unused for about five years, the giant water tank in the city's old corporation yard beside McBean Park finally fell to its knees Tuesday."It fell very slow (and) sounded more like thunder," said Christa Kerns who witnessed and recorded the fall on video camera. "It took almost a minute for the whole thing to come down."Two Rivers Demolition Inc. began work on bringing down the 1.5-million-gallon capacity structure comparable in height to a six-story building Friday. It was first attempted to break through the tank's sides with an excavator's metal shear. When the repeated banging didn't work, a torch was brought out to break through said Adam Barrows, material recovery division manager for Two Rivers.On Monday, more sections of the tank were slowly torched in preparation for the fall and a wire was hooked to the top of the tank to pull it down. Even though many people lined East Avenue and took refuge from the rain under the eaves of Lincoln Produce Market on Monday evening to witness a fall, they were let down. But those gathered Tuesday afternoon were finally rewarded with the tank's gentle collapse. "We like things to happen slow and boring in our business," said Rod Palon, owner of Two Rivers. "It's called controlled demolition."Palon said the time it took to bring down the water tower was pretty typical. Unlike construction where there's a timeline to follow in the plans, demolition often involves learning a structure as it's torn down and sometimes switching game plans in the middle of a project. Because of this tank's skeleton structure, Twin Rivers employees had to perform some re-engineering to make sure there wasn't a structural collapse."You have to let the building talk to you as you get going," Palon said, referring to structure rotation, flexing, cracks and changes that must be made to stay ahead of such things.Palon added this water tank was constructed with thicker metal than Twin Rivers has encountered before, and the metal maintained the same thickness all the way up. That's different because other tanks' metal gets thinner toward the top. John Pedri, director of Lincoln's Public Works Department, said the 71-foot-tall tank was built in 1983. It was designed to alleviate low pressure in town and utilized a pump. It was torn down in part because about five years ago, it was decreed the paint used on the inside of the tank was no longer allowed in the water system. It would have cost about $200,000 to repaint the tank's interior, and Pedri estimated repainting the exterior would have been more expensive.Also, it was removed to make room for a new fire station that will be built in the old corporation yard. And with two water tanks above Del Webb and one above Catta Verdera that together have a capacity of 8 million gallons of storage, as well as three new city wells and one under construction, Pedri added it was more efficient for the city to remove the tank. New and larger water lines through town also help.City Council awarded Twin Rivers a $73,000 contract to remove the water tank at its Oct. 25 meeting. Palon said the project should result in at least a 98 percent diversion rate, meaning the materials will be reused or recycled. Shortly after Lincoln teen Danny Serrano died after falling from the water tower in December, the bottom portion of a ladder on the side of the tank was removed.Pedri relayed two stories of the how the tank served its purpose.He said in July 1997 the city heard from the Placer County Water Agency that within 24 hours, all water serving Lincoln would be cut off because of a problem with a valve in a ditch system. So the city wells were kicked on to fill the tank with reserves and it helped the city survive with water for five days.In November 1997, Pedri said the PCWA lines feeding the city across Auburn Ravine began to leak and PCWA water had to be cut while the pipes were fixed. The water tank and two city wells solely served the city for 30 days. The tank would be filled up at night by the wells to help provide water and pressure during each day's peak hours."So this tank served its purpose," Pedri said. Kerns has lived one street away from the water tank for seven years."I could see it from my front window," she said. "It's very sad to see it go just because it's an old town landmark. And we're losing all of our old-town fixtures, it seems, one by one."Happy the space will be used for a fire station and not another city parking lot, Kerns still is sad to see it go. And she worries what Lincoln's growing population, additional street lights and removal of old buildings in favor of new businesses will lead to."I dread the day they tell Gladding, McBean they can't blow their horn any more for their workers," she said.