‘Leaning Tower of Lewes’ demolished

A 70-year-old wooden water tank that once served the City of Lewes has been demolished.

The sound of wood being crunched was heard as the structure was broken up June 9.

The tank was located on a mound alongside the Lewes-to-Georgetown Trail on the site of the old water treatment and power plants on Schley Avenue.

Lewes Board of Public Works President Tom Panetta said the tank had to go.

“It was the Leaning Tower of Lewes,” he said. “The bottom was rotted. We thought about disassembling it and moving it, but it was not an option. It was too far gone.”

Panetta said the tank was part of a deaerating system, the process by which dissolved gases are removed from water.

He described the inside of the tank as a “wooden pasta pot full of ziti.”

The ziti was tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of ceramic pellets called sites of nucleation. They were left in large piles around the tank as the sides were broken up.

Panetta described to Lewes Mayor and City Council June 9 how the tank functioned.

“There was a fan at the top of the tank. It’s like when you boil a pot of water, the bubbles always start on the outside. The ceramics acted as that. You don’t want any type of gas in water; it makes it difficult to pump and causes damage to pumps,” Panetta said.

He said the pellets and the rest of the debris will be cleaned up and removed from the site.

Panetta said the white building on the mound next to the water tower, which housed mechanicals, will likely be removed.

He said the future of other old structures on the Schley Avenue campus is directly related to plans for a new municipal campus at the former Army Reserve Center on Savannah Road.

“[BPW] has to reach an agreement with the city to reuse the campus. The new Army Reserve Center campus plays a big role in that. It’s all intertwined,” he said.