A piece of Poplar Bluff history to come down

After nearly 70 years in service, Poplar Bluff’s Baugh Lane water tower is coming down.

Constructed in 1947, the 100,000-gallon water tank at the corner of Baugh Lane and Barron Road provided water to the north end of the city for decades, but population growth and expansion of the city required changes.

“We outgrew this one,” said Municipal Utilities General Manager Bill Bach.

Crews from Pittsburg Tank & Tower Group hold a stabilizing rope in place Tuesday afternoon while setting up a 170-foot-tall crane next to the water tower on Baugh Lane. DAR/Paul Davis

A 500,000-gallon tank was constructed on Barron Road, near the fire department, Bach said, and “we built another 500,000-gallon tank on Vandover Road in the 80s.”

Those two towers now serve the entire north end, Bach noted.

The 117-foot-tall Baugh Lane tower was taken out of service in May 2016, Bach said, and crews are working this week to take the aging structure down.

Smith & Company, a Poplar Bluff-based engineering firm, helped the city with a bidding package.

“We only had two bids,” said Smith & Company Project Manager Greg Bell, who noted Pittsburg Tank & Tower Group from Henderson, Kentucky, was awarded the project.

The cost of the project, according to Bach’s October recommendation to the city council, is $69,983.

A crane arrived on site Tuesday to complete the demolition, Bell said.

It was expected last week, but was delayed on another job.

Prior to its arrival, crews from Pittsburg Tank worked around wet weather days to get parts of the tower pre-cut and the site ready for the demolition.

A demolition such as this, Pittsburg Foreman Posey McCormick said, normally takes about one and a half days to complete once the crane is up and running.

“It doesn’t take long,” he said.

The demolition isn’t without its challenges, though.

Mud and soft ground are issues around the water tower, said McCormick, and lots of wood had to be brought in to help stabilize the ground before the crane could go up.

Continued wet weather and nearby power lines on both Baugh Lane and Barron Road also are issues which have to be dealt with.

The demolition process, McCormick said, will begin with the removal of the tank’s roof, called the saucer. Once that is removed, his four-man crew will take down four knuckles and the one-quarter-inch thick side walls of the tower.

The lower bowl of the tank, with its attached catwalk, will be the next piece to come down, followed by the cylindrical center column.

The last step of the demolition, McCormick said, will be the removal of the four support legs and cross braces.

Once the structure is down, all the steel from the tank and tower, McCormick said, will go to a scrap yard to be recycled.

Cleanup of the tower site, he said, also will take longer than normal because of the muddy ground.

Once the site is cleaned up, Bach said, more work will need to be done on the property, and he expects it eventually to be recommended to the city council for sale.