Fast-track water project allows plant to open

It was good news to residents of Fulton County, Ohio, when North Star BHP Steel Limited chose a 750-acre site in the county for its new $472 million steel recycling plant.

In addition to employing 350 people, the new plant was expected to attract related industries that would continue to expand the area’s tax base in a region where non-agricultural job opportunities were limited.

The downside was getting water to the plant site, since the plant’s need for treated water greatly exceeded the available supply. Plant startup was only 10 months away, and without an economically feasible water supply, the entire project was in jeopardy. Meeting the company’s needs became a race against time and involved regional collaboration.

The manufacturer had originally decided it required as much as eight million gallons of raw water a day pumped from the Maumee River to meet its operational requirements. However, once the location was determined and construction of the plant was underway, water quality requirements needed for the manufacturing operation changed, requiring a costly treatment process.

In meetings with neighboring Lucas County and the city of Toledo, Fulton County officials developed a plan to obtain potable water from the Toledo Collins Park Water Treatment Plant more than 30 miles away. (Collins Park draws water from Lake Erie, which has a chemical makeup more favorable to the steel manufacturing process.)

Water from the Toledo distribution system would be conveyed to the Lucas County water system, where it would be re-pumped through the county’s trunk water mains. The county would construct a new trunk water main to convey the water another 20 miles west through Lucas and Fulton counties to the work site.

Working on an accelerated schedule, Finkbeiner, Pettis & Strout, the Toledo-based consulting engineering firm for the $11 million project, designed 20 miles of 36-inch and 24-inch trunk water main, a 3.6-mgd booster pumping station and a 1 million-gallon elevated tank in less than 12 weeks. In June 1996, five different contractors began working on different segments of the project. The trunk water main and pumping station went on-line in November, as scheduled, for plant startup operations.

The design of the booster pumping station proved to be challenging because it initially had to accommodate the startup needs of the steel plant without using the elevated tank, which could not be built until the following summer.

Without the elevated tank to act as a “buffer,” the instrumentation system at the new pumping station had to be configured to pump water to meet the exact needs of the plant. Too little or too much water would disrupt manufacturing operations.

Things have gone so smoothly since production began that another manufacturer, Worthington Industries, has opened a $72 million steel cleaning mill on an adjacent site. That mill is expected to employ 170 people when it reaches full production.

Additionally, since investing in the new infrastructure, Fulton County has realized other benefits, and surrounding communities are now studying the possibility of connecting into the new trunk water main system in order to replace their own water supply systems.

In Lucas County, the new trunk water main meets one of the goals outlined in the county’s master plan, since it was designed with provisions for future water main connections at major roadway intersections.

In Fulton County, water main tees were installed at all intersections with county roads to accommodate water main extensions if needed.

Environmental concerns were a priority from the very beginning of the project, and the route for the water main was changed to avoid interference with the Ohio home of the blue-spotted salamander. A major portion of the pipeline follows an abandoned railway that is scheduled to become a bicycle path, and brush and debris were cleared from the trail during construction to allow natural grasses and vegetation to return to the area.

The Fulton County Trunk Water Main Project was financed with a unique combination of state grants, cash commitments from the steel company and Lucas County and local tax increment financing funds. This financing program required the approval of the local taxing jurisdictions, which were ultimately giving up tax revenues, and is an example of the widespread local support shown for the new industry.

Who helped: Finkbeiner, Pettis & Strout, Price Brothers, U.S. Pipe, Fairbanks Morse, PDM