Local crew sees BIG

Many curious observers watched as a crew that looked like ants from passerby-ers assembled the new Atlanta water tower. What most people don’t know is that first, those crawling around hundreds of feet in the area are from right here in Cass County. And second, this same crew has a heritage of building the old water tower only yards away from the new one. And lastly, they are responsible for big projects including building the largest water tower in the world.

On November 15 a crew of workers led by Foreman Lonnie Lund who works for the company Caldwell, started the project. However, it wasn’t until mid-December they started putting the big pieces of the tower together to make it what you see today as you drive down Highway 59. Though, according to Lonnie, there is still work to do with welding and other finishing touches before a painting crew comes after them to paint it.

According to Lonnie, Caldwell manufactures the pieces in Louisville, KY, then puts them on trucks to their destination, as it did here in Atlanta. “Basically a big puzzle,” says Lonnie.

According to their website, “Caldwell has provided innovative, highly engineered water storage tanks, industrial Field-Erected tanks, vessels, and concrete storage solutions throughout North America since 1987. Leveraging broad capabilities in turnkey design, fabrication, and construction, Caldwell serves water, chemical, oil and gas, wastewater, process, power, energy, and aerospace industries.”

Even though the company is from Kentucky. The Lunds can stay local here in Cass County and then travel to where they need to be in RVs. His crew, including his friend Michael Steward from Hooks, lives mainly in Northeast Texas. However, they have recently hired a gentleman from Missouri.

For those that don’t know, one of the special parts of the tower assembly is that Lonnie is a second-generation water tower builder who has the fortunate distinction of building the new water tower only a “stones throw” direction from the one that he helped his father Gordan Lund built about 37 years ago. Lonie started working with his dad in 1995 for Caldwell and has been a foreman since 2000. He is the longest-tenured foreman for the company. His father Gordan had been building towers for over 30 years. Also on the crew is another family member, nephew Taylor McCardy, who graduated from Atlanta. Lonnie himself says he lives up by Domino. He graduated from Queen City in 1995.

The old Atlanta tower though, much to the dismay of Gordon, is coming down after this one is built. “A person takes a lot of pride in the work they do says Lonnie, and it was built in his hometown.” The new tower was built to meet certain criteria of the town, says Lonnie including height and pressure that the old one couldn’t meet.

There is a pretty large difference between the towers even though from the roadside they may look similar in size. The old one is estimated to be 300 thousand gallons and approximately 110 feet. While the new tower is 500 thousand gallons at 135 feet.

As far as the size of the crew that helped put the tower together in Atlanta, Lonnie says he tries to keep the same crew in every tower he does. Usually about three or four says Lonnie. ”Everyone is not running over each other trying to find something to do. Also, they all have a job and know what to do on each project.” He says that his crew feels very much like family since they spend so much time together.

His crew has had the distinction of building some of the largest water towers in the world. The largest is located at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 36. The 1960s facility was reborn as Blue Origin’s flagship pad for its New Glenn rocket according to Florida Today. The 750-thousand-gallon tank releases every bit of the water from the tank in about 40 seconds to cool the rockets says Lonie. He said each section of the tower is about the full size of the Atlanta tower. The size of the pipe is about eight feet wide.

They also had the opportunity to build the second tallest water tower in the world this past winter at John C. Stennis Space Center. This one was for Relativity Space which boasts of building the largest 3d printed rocket. That tower was 330 feet tall.

Lonnie says there is talk about building one over 500 feet tall.

Some other notable tanks he has built were for the owner of Under Armor. Another was at Kemah Boardwalk, which has a lighthouse on top of it.