On April 8 City Council voted unanimously to fund more than $700,000 in improvements to the city's Pfennig Pump Station. The money will go toward funding two parts of the project: A $581,558 purchase of new pumps, motors and variable frequency drives; and $122,995 for purchasing new electrical switchboard equipment. In the future city officials say they will also look to increase the capacity of the city's water storage at the pump station by adding another 500,000-gallon tank. The city hopes to have all phases of the project complete and operational by January 2015.

"This project has a number of objectives, but primarily it is to improve the reliability of water by adding additional pumps," Assistant City Manager Tom Word said. "This is Part A of a multi-part project."

Although the pump station is less than six years old, City Manager Brandon Wade said it was in need of an upgrade because its original design was not properly planned. The city has reviewed its water-pumping needs and determined the plant would not be capable of keeping up with the city's growth, he said.

"To be quite frank the size of the water station they built was a guess," Wade said.

The funding for the project will come out of the city's Capital Improvement Plan budget. Ward said the new pumps would be able to accommodate all of the city's growth for the next 15 years.