Treatment Process

Here at the Hightower Water Treatment Facility, consumer safety, water quality, and customer satisfaction are our top priority. We are currently a 3 million gallon a day facility with a current upgrade taking us to 5.5 million gallons per day.

As most of you know, our water source is the Etowah river. Given our location on the river, we have an excellent source water and therefore it is reflected in our treated water quality. We withdraw daily from the river and the water is pumped into our pre-sedimentation reservoir. This further improves our raw water quality as the water has time to naturally settle out suspended particles or turbidity. From the reservoir the water is sent to our treatment facility where our process begins.

We begin by adding chlorine (disinfection), liquid alum and soda ash to form “floc” which attaches itself to the particles and adds weight to further the settling process. The water remains in our basins for approximately 3 hours and then is filtered through 4 individual filters which consist of several layers of gravel, sand, and anthracite. After this step, we then add chlorine again, soda ash for ph adjustment, phosphate, and fluoride for the children’s teeth.

The water then goes into our on site storage tanks and is then pumped to you, our customers. Our lab conducts tests on the process every 2 hours and samples are taken from the distribution system on a monthly basis to insure water quality. We exceed every required regulation when it comes to these procedures and we are very proud of our product when it leaves our facility.