Pro Diving Inc. may not be plumbers, but the Ironton City Council thinks

the Akron, Ala.-based company will be able to stop the city’s constant water

leak.

In a special meeting Saturday morning, Council unanimously authorized Mayor John Elam to award a contract of $23,461 to Pro Diving to repair the city’s underground water storage tank on Nixon Hill off of State Route 93. The company is expected to start 7 to 10 days after receiving a contract.

The repairs will not affect any residents' water pressure or quality, but will help cut the operating costs at the water plant, City Engineer Phil Biggs said.

Clear Well No. 1, the 4.5-million gallon concrete water tank that was built in 1917, leaks nearly 400,000 gallons of water every day. It costs the city more than $5,000 a month, according to estimates by Mark White, part-time superintendent of the city’s water treatment plant.

According to White’s calculations, the city loses about 56.3 percent of the

water it produces each month. For example, the city may produce 51 million gallons of treated water but is only billing customers for 22 million gallons.

The city hopes the project will pay for itself in just a few months. White has said he thinks the repairs will be so successful that at least a part of the tank will still be usable for another five to 10 years.

This has been a reoccurring problem for years and past repairs were only short-term fixes. City officials hope the repairs will completely fix the problem. Plans to build a new 1-million gallon tank are expected to be finalized later this year.

Clear Well No. 2, a 1-million gallon tank, is in good shape, so the city would have more than enough supply to handle its daily usage of less than 2 million gallons, Biggs said.

Another 1-million gallon tank could then be built on either the north or south end of town at a later date, Biggs said.

Pro Diving submitted an original bid that was approximately $15,000, but the engineer reconfigured the bid proposal to include more repairs and to allow the company to videotape the inside of the entire tank.

Biggs said he recommended this company over the other two companies based on the company’s experience with the resin product that will be used to fix the cracks.