After years of planning, testing and fundraising, the City of Whitehall plans to begin construction of a new $8 million drinking water treatment plant in the coming weeks.
Whitehall Mayor Mary Janacaro-Hensleigh said in a phone interview with The Monitor that work would begin by Hard Rock Contractors and Triple Tree Engineering, this spring, as weather permits. The location of the new treatment plant is on the southern end of town, near the softball fields.The plant will provide a community drinking water source to residents in the city limits.
“We’re very excited about getting started on this,” Janacaro-Hensleigh said. “It took us six years to raise the money for the project. And, it is the first treatment plant in the state that will be able to remove uranium from the water.”
Whitehall first notified residents of the presence of uranium in the drinking water in late 2015. Like other county communities, the town faced regulatory issues with state and federal authorities. The Whitehall project could become a template that other communities with water contamination problems might follow.
Whitehall, like other county communities, had difficulties locating a water supply source free of natural contaminants. Janacaro-Hensleigh said over 40 test wells were sampled during the investigation for a water supply. “The testing of the wells was an initial step to see if there were any sources of water that did not contain uranium; they all had uranium,” the mayor said.
Eventually, city officials agreed on the plan for a treatment system that was able to remove the trace uranium in the water samples, which occur naturally as bedrock granite decomposes underground. The town’s two main wells will be the source of the water supply for the treatment plant, Janacaro-Hensleigh confirmed.
The process to extract the trace amounts of uranium involves a variety of different chemical and physical filtration processes. Removal of uranium and other metals is done through a process called “UltraFiltration,” which uses reverse osmosis and nanofiltration to remove uranium and metal contaminants. The processed water then goes through normal chlorination before being delivered to residents. “Like the water filter on your sink,” the mayor explained, “Only much bigger.”
The water treatment plant is only one major upgrade happening in Whitehall this year. Using funds from a grant from the Transportation Authority, the city will be installing new, and upgrading existing sidewalks throughout the town. Work is expected to begin on the sidewalks in the next few days. And, new pickleball courts are being installed in the north section of town, near the pool.
