Introduction
One of the most important and vital services that residents in every community require is portable water. Everyone depends on water for different purposes; cooking, washing, drinking amongst others. To be able to provide this essential service to the community members, the water purification and distribution system of the particular area should be very efficient or even exemplary since water is life.
For this particular discussion, I am going to focus on my hometown which is Helena in the state of Montana. It is the capital city of the state of Montana and has a population figure of roughly 28150.The city of Helena in Montana gets its water supply from two main sources; surface sources and underground wells. Two water treatment plants operated by the Helena Water Treatment Division exist in the area. These two plants are the Tenmile Water Treatment Plant and the Missouri Water Treatment Plant. The latter receives its water from the Missouri River located in the eastern part of the city (Jim Rice 15). This particular plant is mainly operated during the summer period. The main reason for this is because of the peak water demands experienced in this period. It also acts as the primary water source when the city is experiencing drought conditions throughout the year.
The Tenmile Water treatment plant which is situated in the Western part of Helena has is its main water source as the Tenmile Creek Drainage but also receives additional water from the Scott and Chessman reservoirs. This plant unlike the Missouri operates all year long. In addition to these two water supply systems, the city of Helena receives additional water from a well water collector situated at Park and Cruise streets in Eureka (Jim Rice 17). This additional water system is referred to as the Hale system.
The water distribution system in Helena comprises several water storage reservoirs and pumping s stations. The water reservoirs are situated at Winnie, Hale, Nob Hill, Woolston, Upper Hale and Malben. The water pumping stations are located at Hale, Eureka, Forrest Estates, Dahlhausen, Reeders village and Nob hill. The water reservoirs and the pumping stations have a linkage consisting of a water distribution and transmission pipelines’ distance of about 185 miles (Jim Rice 22).
The distribution system of Helena city is one of the best in the state of Montana. Through the Helena Valley Canal tunnel, a siphon pipe pumps water into a regulating reservoir. From the reservoir, water is then taken through a series of purification steps. Due to the fact that most of the water from used in the State of Montana passes through ground bedrock composed of alluvium, this water has been observed to have high sensitive to contaminant sources. This sensitivity means that contaminants can very easily migrate into the water sources (Jim Rice 12). This therefore means that the water must undergo an intensive purification stage to ensure that the water that reaches the household is 100% safe for consumption.
The water that we draw from our taps is usually crystal clear and clean, an aspect that exhibits further proof of the effectiveness and efficiency of the city of Helena water distribution system.
Work cited
Jim Rice, City of East Helena Public Water Supply, Source Water Delineation and Assessment Report (SWDAR), November 2002.
