As you drive into the City of Alliance from the west on Route 173 (State Street, Old 62), on a clear day or evening you can see the mall water tower from several miles away. You can probably see it from other directions also, given the right circumstances. Did you ever wonder how much water is in there?

The answer to that question is; 500,000 gallons. The proper name of the tower at the mall is "Midpark" tower. It is about 130 feet tall and is the tallest of the four towers in the city. It was built primarily to handle the water demands of the city's expansion to the west.

As you travel east on State Street, the next tower is the Rosemont, located behind Buckeye Village. The Rosemont tower also holds 500,000 gallons. The remaining two towers are located in the 23^rd Street and Clark Street area. The Clark St. tower holds 1,000,000 gallons. It is the newest of the four towers, having been built in the 1970's. The 23^rd Street tower holds 3,000,000. It's sort of hard to call the 23^rd Street facility a "tower" since it's only 55 feet high. It's more short and round than the others. And there's a reason for that.

The water in the 23^rd St. tower itself comes directly from the treatment plant, located about four miles north. The 23^rd Street tower holds the water that is pumped out to the other three towers. The Midpark, Rosemont, and Clark St. towers, while providing needed storage, also provide an increase in water pressure on the "high" side of town by using booster pumps.

So this is how it goes. Walborn Reservoir, located in Marlboro Township and Deer Creek Reservoir, located in Lexington Township, provide water for the City of Alliance. Near the dam at Deer Creek Reservoir there is an intake pipe. That pipe was installed about fifty years ago and runs about a mile and a half to the treatment plant. When that pipe is open, water flows by gravity to the plant. When it reaches the plant, it is pumped up about 20 feet into the actual treatment facility.

Under general conditions, water does not run uphill. Now, there may be some weird stories out there about people seeing water run uphill all by itself. But in the City of Alliance, water has to be pumped uphill. The Mount Union area is a couple hundred feet higher in elevation than the northern part of the city. Therefore, there are two different water pressure zones in Alliance because of the differences in elevation.

The explanation of these zones is best left to Mike Dreger, Superintendent of the Water Distribution Department. You can call him at 330-823-5216. Suffice to say, the aim of the Water Distribution Department is to provide around 35 PSI (pounds per square inch) of water pressure to customers. The further goal is to do this without blowing the pipes out of the houses on the north side of town where the pressure is higher (because it's closer to the plant and isn't uphill).

About every three years, a tower is drained and inspected as preventative maintenance. The water from the tower is drained into the storm sewer. According to Mike Dreger, the water in the towers "turns over" at the rate of about 25% a day, depending on the water usage rate.

If you have other questions about how the water gets to your house, call Mike Dreger.