By Mary Owen
Sublimity’s ailing water tower will be dismantled this month, weather permitting.
“The main reason the tower is coming down is the cost of maintenance, time and the fact that over the years, weather has taken a toll on the exterior of the tank,” said Mayor Gene Ditter.
The tower, erected in 1948, provided water for the city for about 50 years, Ditter said.
“In checking records, we found the first public well for the city of Sublimity was drilled in 1912,” Ditter said.
“This 50,000-gallon elevated water tower didn’t come along ’til 1948 and served the city until 1999 along with a 500,000-gallon tank that was built in 1988.”
Ditter said the tower was taken out of service when Sublimity’s 1.5 million-gallon reservoir was completed and came online the same year as the tower was retired.
“Since this time the tower has stood empty and had minimal maintenance on it,” Ditter said.
Sublimity City Council first discussed removing the water tower in 2003, a move that was delayed when two council members suggested selling it on eBay. The water tower was sold on June 30 of that year, but the buyer could not meet all the requirements to finalize the sale, according to Ditter.
“There were other parties interested in the tower, but all of them also could not afford the relocations costs that they would incur,” Ditter said.
At that point, the council decided to keep the tower, he said.
The city was then approached by a cell phone company wanting to use it as a cell site. Approval was given, the company entered into a lease agreement with the city, and the monies received were placed into a budget line for tower maintenance, Ditter said.
“After several years, the company requested to terminate the lease because they found they were able to serve the area better from a different location,” he said. “No equipment was ever put on the tower.”
Engineers inspected the tower, finding it stable and defining future maintenance.
Ken Cartwright, owner of KENC 1620 AM, a low-power community radio station serving Stayton and Sublimity, discovered a loose ladder while checking his antenna, which was then attached to the tower, Ditter said.
The ladder has since been temporarily secured, Ditter added.
“The ladder needs to be removed, which would require a crane,” he said. “And there is the loading of the tank with sand to increase the stability of the tank, which would require more people and equipment.”
An investigation by city officials found that removing the tower was less expensive than a long-term maintenance program.
“The monies received from the lease will cover the removal of the tower,” Ditter said.
The water tower will not be replaced, he said, citing the city’s two storage tanks as “adequate at this time.”
“I wish there were an alternative, but we have looked at it from many different angles to come to a solution,” he said. “If the tower were located out in the middle of a field without anything around it for 1,000 feet – and the city had the funds to restore and perform proper maintenance – the decision probably would have been to keep it.”
But with the tower’s proximity to family dwellings and the city’s lack of disposable funds, Ditter said, “The responsible thing for the city to do is have the tower dismantled and removed at this time.”
For more information, call the city at 503-769-5475.
