The City of Winder hosted a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday to celebrate upcoming construction to the city's drinking water plant.
Expanding the plant means increasing the capacity or output of clean drinking water from 6.2 million gallons a day (MGD) to 9.2 MGD. The additional 3 MGD is vital as the Winder-Auburn reservoir project is slated to come online in the next 5 years, along with building resiliency and reliability for the City’s 50,000 water customers.
This project represents an investment of $19.5 million in Winder’s water system and is funded by an $11 million American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant and supplemented by a Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA) loan. This method of funding the water system continues to support the mission and vision of City Council, investing in the City’s enterprises without using taxpayer dollars as a subsidy.
The plant located on Highway 53 was built in the 70’s, with the ability to produce 2 million gallons of clean drinking water each day.
Previous expansion projects in the 80’s and late 90’s added service pumps and more treatment capacity up to the current 6.2 MGD, which allowed the City to decommission the much older May Street water treatment plant.
This expansion will be the first Capital Improvement Project (CIP) the City of Winder’s Highway 53 water treatment plant has seen in 25 years.
Improvements included in this expansion include raw water flow monitoring improvements, water treatment improvements, chemical storage and ancillary improvements to the building along with strategic planning for future expansion to the campus.
Construction will begin this month with an estimated completion date of Spring 2026. This project was designed by ESG Engineering and construction contract was awarded to Lakeshore Engineering.
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