RIVERSIDE — The city of Riverside has approved two new contracts to deal with its water tank maintenance.

During its rescheduled meeting Tuesday, the council approved two contracts with American Tank Maintenance one for the city’s 200,000 gallon tank and one for its 500,000 gallon tank. The contract will have the city pay the company $27,300 a year for the maintenance of the tanks and will also include regular renovations of each tank. 

Utilities Director Brian Gulledge said the city was previously contracted with Tank Pro since 2014, but has not been satisfied with the quality of service. He said there were noticeable issues with preventative maintenance. 

“The workmanship has been poor, to say the least, from day one,” he told the council.

Gulledge said the Tank Pro had also done renovations on the exterior of each tank a year and a half ago and that work is already beginning to chip and crack. He said he preferred finding a new maintenance service rather than letting the tanks get in worse condition before a full renovation. Gulledge said that the Tank Pro contract would not have had a full renovation scheduled for another eight years. 

He said he has also had situations where Tank Pro has contacted him to do maintenance and not show up. Gulledge said this means he has had to drain water tanks even though no maintenance was done, something he has to report to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. He said that situation also puts the city’s water system in danger of running low on water if there is a big leak.

Gulledge said ADEM also does require cities to have a tank maintenance program. 

“Starting in April of this year, ADEM requires a tank maintenance program now,” he said, “and they require annual inspections by certified inspectors.”

Councilman Sam Maddox wondered if the city would pass that inspection. Councilman Dan Cain and Councilman Jimmy Hollander also said the pictures provided by Gulledge make a clear case that something needs to be done.

Gulledge was clear that the city’s water quality is fine, but the maintenance is necessary to keep the tanks in good working order.

“Its preventative maintenance is what it is,” he said, adding that if paint is allowed to chip or rust develop the city could need to build a new tank, which would not be cheap.

The only other matter taken up by the council was to approve edits to the city’s zoning ordinance. The changes mainly consisted of allowing for the one time subdivision of a parcel of land into no more than two parcels without planning and zoning board approval, requiring a zoning certificate to be issues before a building permit, allowing new manufactured or modular homes to be placed in R-3 zones with planning a zoning board approval and amending the fee schedule to include the zoning certificate and subdivision exemption. 

Taylor Mitchell is a Daily Home reporter covering Pell City.

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