SALEM NEWS ARTICLE - NEW SALEM BEVERLY WATERWORKS FACILITY {
26 THE SALEM, MASS., EVENING NEWS — WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1978 A2 (1
. New waterworks keeps
New public plant on lake
Salem, Beverly supplied
4
That's Wenham Lake in the background, and the
By ROBERT McKEON facilities in the foreground are the plant and
News Staff settling tanks of the Salem-Beverly Water Supply
1 • Board. Now in operation, the waterworks,facility
` produces a third more treated water than did its 43-
M — Owing to the operation of the new -
waterworks facility at Wenham Lake, residents,of the year.old predecessor, and is one of the most modern
Witch and Garden cities have experienced no water [ water filtration plants in New England. Construe-
crises this summer. ..� ,.gyp. m. r �ilif�u�It4EEr it,ryrw3 ;, , :. n of the plant was the major part of an overall
Salem-Beverly waterworks improvement program
The monumental edifice is replacing ,a plant that �If�—t�� +�+�r•• �trr— 1.T -
was constructed nearly five decades ago, and is " - 't that.involved renovations at Longham Reservoir,
capable of pumping 24 million gallons of water 40 - + • clearing and grading of the diversion canal from the
* I swich River, and purchase Salem and Beverly consumers per day. � - w P p chase of a r,Au,reservoir site
- in To sfield. (Peter Zaharis
On occasions this summer, the water output has ap- p )-
proached the 17-million-gallons-a-day level, but no u
crises have occurred. The old plant would have suf-
fered stress under such conditions.
According to Kenneth F. Knowlton, a former
"Waterworks man-of-the-year,"and superintendent of r 4 "'A
the- waterworks controlled by the Salem-Beverly
Water Supply Board,the new plant is operating at nearg-
complete efficiency, and the completion of the " >
facility—landscaping, painting and sundry interior. L "
touches—may be anticipated sometime in mid-
September.
Knowlton, one of the state's foremost water experts,-
also speculated that the. plant project will be f
completed in mid-September, and explained that the
facility is easily capable of being converted to a daily ,
capacity of 32 million gallons, should the need arise.
The plant superintendent proceeded to observe that,,
as part of the overall waterworks improvement
project, the Salem-Beverly Water Supply Board has
acquired a 200--acre plot of land,on both sides of Route 1 1 }
in Topsfield as the future site of a reservoir. r„
As part of the improvement project, the dam and
That property, however, will not be develo ed for other facilities of Lon ham Reservoir, located in the u
P P Y, P Long
ham
purposes until such time as the residents of hinterland of Wenham,were rehabilitated'That reser-
the two cities composing the district demand such ac- voir had been subjected to the forays of vandals during -
tion. the early 1970s.
1 ¢ t t
Included in the acreage are a pair of graves and a Then, the canal that serves to pump water to j t •
waste treatment plant that was formerly used for dis- Wenham Lake and Putnamville Reservoir frgm the -
! posal purposes by the U.S. Army Nike site in Danvers. Ipswich River has been cleared and regraded in the • a
course of the program. - • fi
The waterworks improvement project is an overall
program launched in recent years by the water board Under legislation, the water board is authorized to r" Lk • `*'
(now composed*of Chairman William A. Calhoun,'of divert up to seven billion gallons of water from the
Saugus; City Engineer Anthony V. Fletcher,of Salem; river each year,between the first of December and the
and Public Works Director George M. Gline, of end of May.
Beverly) to update the Salem-Beverly water system. "
However, the two-city district has never approached
This program also includes the elevation of Putnam- that volume of diversion.
ville Reservoir in Danvers to a capacity of greater P Y g Quite possibly, at some future point, the district will Mi
than 1.8 billion gallons. Wenham Lake the primary (Peter Zaharis)
P
g � Y be ince rated mto some sort of r conal water
g leg
source of water for the two cities has a capacity of a -
P Y P program (vide 30-B),but such a program will probably Modernized waterworks facility
proximately 1 2 billion gallons of usable water.
not be implemented in the foreseeable future. The long-awaited filtrationP lant of of 24 hours, replaces. an outmoded
the Salem-Beverly Water Supply plant that went into operation in 1935.
Board has been "on line" this sum- The new plant, like the old, is located
mer, and should be completed in toto at Wenham Lake, on the Beverly-
by next month. The facility, with a Wenham line. Supt.-Chemist Kenneth
a capability of supplying up to 24 million F. Knowlton, right,observes as Mario
{' gallons of treated water to consumers Tricomi,of Salem, an employee at the
of Salem and Beverly within a period new plant, records readings.