By Kyle LoJacono
When Paul Kavanagh gets a glass of water, makes coffee or brushes his teeth he understands better than anyone how much effort goes into making it as easy as turning a faucet.
Kavanagh is one of the 184,000 northwest Hillsborough County residents who expect to have fresh, clean and reliable water every time they want it. Kavanagh is the plant manager for the Lake Park Water Plant on Dale Mabry, which delivers an average of eight million gallons of H2O every day.
Kavanagh and his staff work around the clock so water service is always flowing, and have been recognized the last two years with a pair of the industry’s top state honors.
The plant was given the Most Outstanding Water Plant award in its class from the Florida Section of the American Water Works Association’s annual competition in 2010. The facility made it two in a row when it brought home the title recognizing its innovations and improvements in April.
“I got the call telling us we’d won,” said Talbert Anckle, plant supervisor. “I first thought, no way. It wasn’t what I was thinking was going to come out of the phone.”
Kavanagh was, and wasn’t, surprised with the second honor.
“To get two in a row is pretty rare because it’s statewide,” Kavanagh said. “There is a panel of five from the industry who vote on it. … We didn’t expect it to happen again, but we know we’re doing the right things. To be recognized like this, I was elated.”
Kavanagh said the first award was given based on several categories from the overall operations. For example, the plant had no system violations or chemical spills all year.
The plant employees also took initiative to enhance several of its elements, which led to the second honor.
“We added additional ammonia storage, which saves us money because we don’t have to split up shipments with other plants,” Kavanagh said. “We’re also giving additional training to our workers.”
Another upgrade was improving the plant’s aesthetics.
“The guys used their own money and they donated things they had to make the grounds look better,” Kavanagh said. “We recycle whatever we can — our cans and bottles — and use that money too. We understand the county would like to help us with those things, but there isn’t the money for it.
“For us it’s about pride in our plant and we all buy into it,” Kavanagh continued. “For example, Kevin (Kraujalis) was just hosing down part of the grounds. He didn’t have to, but he saw some dirt and he wanted to. This whole team does whatever needs to be done. That’s one of the reasons we won again. They liked our initiative.”
Kavanagh said they are constantly looking for ways to improve, but added they are basically working with the latest equipment.
Most of the daily operations involve treating the water. The facility uses a chlorine-based cleaning method. Ammonia is added to keep the water clean longer in the storage tanks while also binding up and removing all residual chlorine.
“There is some research that suggests just using free chlorine may increase cancer risk,” Kavanagh said. “The ammonia removes any chance of that happening. It’s a safety factor.”
The plant can store enough diesel fuel to operate for three weeks if it were to lose power from TECO during a hurricane or other disaster. Kavanagh said in 2004, the year the state suffered from multiple storms, the facility had to use its own fuel to keep water flowing for several days.
“If TECO comes back online, we have the materials here to manufacture the chlorine and other chemicals to supply water for a long time while everything is cleaned up,” Kavanagh said. “Part of the reason we won these awards was for our hurricane action plan. Everything is fully supplied when we know a storm is coming so people can return to some form of normal life.”
The Lake Park plant first opened in 1982 and was renovated in 2001. It can withstand up to a Category 4 hurricane. Ten workers maintain the facility, while many people on the street ensure the pipes and other infrastructure get the water to the communities.
The facility supplies water to people in Odessa/Keystone along Gunn Highway, north into Lutz along Dale Mabry and as far south as Carrollwood.
The plant can supply as much as 42 million gallons of water a day. It can also store 10 million gallons total in its two tanks.
The plant gets its water from local wells and from Tampa Bay Water, the regional supplier for Pasco, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. The water is tested at least every four hours, 24 hours a day. That includes all holidays.
“We have electronic devices that monitor things and let us know if they detect anything odd,” said Kevin Kraujalis, senior plant operator. “If that happens we go out and immediately test the water ourselves to see what needs correcting, so sometimes we test more than every four hours.”
For more information on the plant, visit www.hillsboroughcounty.org.
