Cookeville Water Plant Adding Generator, Underground Lines

The Cookeville Water and Sewer Department will purchase a new generator for the Water Treatment Plant thanks to a $4 million grant.

Cookeville Water and Sewer Department Director Barry Turner said the department has experienced outages and was not able to treat water for the city without a generator to supplement power. He said this generator will be able to power two of the plant’s 700-horsepower pumps.

“We’ve had a few that’s been extended,” Turner said. “And then one that’s probably been about two years ago now that really brought it to the forefront where we were off for quite a while at the intake.”

Turner said the city is now in the process of an engineering report for the installation of the generator. In addition, power lines leading to the plant will be moved underground.

The underground electric contract will cost some $368,000, and the generator will be bid out separately. Turner said having the lines underground will remove the risk of trees falling on above-ground lines.

“This project, of course a generator, we may not need it many times,” Turner said. “But when you do need it, it’s important to have, so we’re trying to get it in place.”

Turner said the generator will be located outside of the plant, an easier installation process than getting a machine of that size into the plant. He said the city is rounding up price estimates before bidding out the generator.

“Specifically, that’s money that doesn’t have to come from the ratepayers,” Turner said.