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Partly cloudy skies. Low 61F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.

The addition to Bowling Green Municipal Utility's water treatment plant along the U.S. 31-W Bypass will increase the plant's daily capacity from 30 million gallons to 45 million. 

The addition to Bowling Green Municipal Utility's water treatment plant along the U.S. 31-W Bypass will increase the plant's daily capacity from 30 million gallons to 45 million. 

It seemed an unlikely place to be searching for what amounts to a Christmas gift.

Mike Gardner, Bowling Green Municipal Utilities’ water and sewer systems manager, and BGMU Water Treatment Plants Superintendent Doug Kimbler on Wednesday wound through the labyrinth that is the utility’s water treatment plant near Chestnut Street and U.S. 31-W Bypass.

It’s a maze-like mix of old and new as Gardner and Kimbler tour a facility along the Barren River that, like a giant-sized chemistry lab, has been treating water from the river for nearly 100 years and is now nearly ready to bring online a section of 10 new filters that will boost the plant’s capacity from 30 million gallons per day to 45 million.

That pristine, enclosed section of the water treatment plant is where the Christmas gift comes in. A construction zone for nearly three years now, the $45 million addition to the plant is expected to be operational by the holidays.

“The plan originally was to have it ready in two years,” Gardner said, “but we’ve run into the same supply chain delays that everyone is dealing with.”

The added water treatment capacity can’t come soon enough.

Gardner said the increase in water demand in Bowling Green and Warren County means BGMU is “right up against” the plant’s current capacity.

During a five-day stretch this summer, for example, the plant reached a peak of 26 million gallons per day.

With high demand expected from the Tyson Foods and Envision AESC plants that are being built in the Kentucky Transpark, the numbers are only going to go higher.

Kimbler said Warren County’s industrial and residential growth means the water treatment plant needs an expansion “every 15 to 20 years” to meet the needs of its Bowling Green customers and those of the Warren County Water District, which gets its water from BGMU.

Kimbler said the current expansion was “seven or eight years” in the making, meaning that planning for the next expansion is already underway.

“We can add 10 more filters and grow our capacity by another 15 million gallons,” Kimbler said. “That’s all we can get out of this site.”

Gardner said getting to 60 million gallons per day is the long-term goal for the treatment plant’s 11.5-acre site.

He said 7.5 of those acres are taken up by the older facilities, which started in 1928 with two filters. The current expansion is using another 4.5 acres, leaving a single acre for adding another 10 filters.

Reaching that 60 million-gallon capacity will exhaust BGMU’s water treatment real estate and Kimbler said it will also max out the utility’s current water source.

“That will be about all we can take out of the river,” he said.

Gardner said BGMU will need to look at another water source, “probably the Green River,” once that 60 million-gallon capacity is reached.

BGMU’s current expansion, though, isn’t just about getting bigger.

The utility will realize some added efficiencies from newer technology, and it has already started a new system of water disinfection aimed at ensuring that it continues to meet increasingly stringent federal water quality standards.

Gardner explained that BGMU has moved away from using gaseous chlorine as a disinfectant, going instead to a bleach that it makes on site.

A salt-and-water solution, contained in a silo at the treatment plant, is put through an electrical field to break it down into a bleach solution.

“It’s about one-tenth the strength of household bleach, but it still does a good job of killing any bacteria,” Kimbler said.

It seems to be working. At a time when communities like Flint, Mich., and Jackson, Miss., are continuing to struggle with water quality issues, BGMU’s water treatment plant and its water recovery facility near Hobson Grove Park are being recognized for meeting or exceeding water quality standards.

For 12 years running, the water recovery facility has received the operational excellence award from the Clean Water Professionals of Kentucky and Tennessee.

The water treatment plant has in recent years garnered Plant of the Year and Operator of the Year awards from the Kentucky Water & Wastewater Operators Association.

– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.

​– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.

Trying to keep pace with Warren County’s rapid growth, Bowling Green Municipal Utilities has started a project to install a 30,000-foot-long f…

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