The city of Lubbock has installed geodesic domes over its 11 water storage tanks to reduce evaporation and pollution in the city's drinking water. This waymarked dome is located on the southeast side of Lubbock, on the Loop 289 at E 66th Street.
From the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: (
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"DOMES TO PROTECT LUBBOCK'S WATER
Published: Tuesday, February 20, 2001
by MICHAEL GAFFNEY
"The sunlight flashing off the curved surface of a newly installed aluminum dome off the Slaton Highway may bear an eerie resemblance to a 1950's vision of a flying saucer, but it's just a protective cover for one of Lubbock's water reservoirs.
Following an order from the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission, the city is spending $3.4 million to upgrade the roofs on its water reservoirs.
The city's drinking water is held in 10 reservoirs, ranging in size from 2 million to 10 million gallons. The concrete structures are covered to protect them from contaminants, such as bird droppings, dust and falling.
But the original roofs allowed water to pool on top of them, causing a health hazard, according to the conservation commission, said Ches Carthel, chief water engineer for the City of Lubbock.
In response to the commission's order, seven of the city's 10 reservoirs will eventually be covered by aluminum, geodesic domes. Such domes are curved structures with lines create polygons. The design creates structurally strong roofs, with enough curve to shed water.
Two of the reservoirs already have new domes, Carthel said.
Geodesic dome covers one of 10 water reservoirs that serve Lubbock's citizens. The dome, required by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, protects the water from contaminants and drains rain quickly from the roof.
"The problem is that (pooling) water ... has the potential to contaminate the water inside the reservoir," he said. "And it also has the potential to cause structural problems because when that water sits on top of the concrete, it can effectively corrode the concrete over a long time and cause a hole.
"The advantage of the domes is that, they have such a high slope that water does not pool, it just runs right off."
TEMCOR Inc., a California company, is installing the geodesic domes.
Along with protecting the water from pollutants, the domes also cut down on how much water is lost to evaporation, which translates to a measurable savings for the city, Carthel said.
By covering the reservoirs, about 5 feet of water in each reservoir is saved from evaporation each year, he said.
"I've got a rough estimate of about 9.9 million total gallons of water per year that does not evaporate," he said. "In cash savings, if it's 53 cents per thousand (gallons), that would be $5,200, roughly."
A geodesic dome covers one of 10 water reservoirs that serve Lubbock citizens. The curved dome, required by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, protects the water from contaminants and drains rain quickly from the roof.
The cost of each dome varies from about $157,000 for small reservoirs, to the most expensive, which will cost $1.2 million.
"Half of that cost is due to demolition," Carthel said. "It's a 10-million gallon reservoir ... and the existing roof is in such poor shape that we need to demolish it.
"The others, we're simply placing a structure on top of an existing roof, and leaving the existing roof in place."
Residents of Lubbock consume approximately 37.5 million gallons of water per day, or about 13 billion gallons a year.
Between 20 and 30 percent of the water comes from the Bailey County Well Field near Muleshoe, Carthel said. The rest is pumped from Lake Meredith, north of Amarillo.
"The water we get from Lake Meredith is what's called a renewable resource, so it's a much more reliable supply of water," he said. "The water in Bailey County, while it is a higher quality, is a limited supply. When we use it, it's gone."