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Temporary potable water tank saves town money, buys time

Projects | July 1, 2026 | By:

A close-up of the side of the brown metal temporary water tank serving Paonia, Colorado, with two white vertical pipes. Geosynthetic textiles wrap up over the top of the tank from the inside and extend about one-third of the way down. The tank is set against a brown earth hillside the color of sand, and the blue sky has scattered clouds.
Image: Colorado Lining International

The town of Paonia, Colo., faced a costly issue: replacing its above-ground drinking water storage tanks or refurbishing them. But what to do while one or the other was offline?

The solution came in the form of a rapidly deployable temporary water tank with a capacity of 680,000 gallons, perched on a steep, rocky hillside at more than 6,500 feet above the town near its other water infrastructure. Water storage tanks aren’t a new use of technical textiles, but one being built to hold a town’s drinking water—even temporarily—is not an everyday project. For one, the materials must be certified to the NSF-61 potable water standard. 

The project was completed within six days. Two days were lost to the weather, and one day was spent fine-tuning the leveling of the compacted earth tank pad. 

“[The level base is] critical to the design,” says Pat Elliott, director of installation, Colorado Lining International, which designed, built and installed its HydraStor™ tank system. Elliott presented the project to Advanced Textiles Association members in a webinar in April.

A heavyweight nonwoven geotextile serves as the floor, rather than steel or concrete, and geomembranes make up the secondary liner and primary bladder system.

Circular brown temporary water tank serving Paonia, Colorado. It has a black geosynthetic textile cover. It is surrounded by green hills and there is a large green water storage tank in the background that is being refurbished.
Image: Colorado Lining International

The liner wraps up and over steel tank ring walls and clamps around the top perimeter. The interior bladder protects the stored water from outside contamination, and the system incorporates a water level sensing setup for remote monitoring.

The project was completed last fall to help supply the town through the winter while its steel tank was being repaired. The goal was to refill that in February and remove the temporary tank, but the city decided to keep it in use over the summer for extra storage.

The temporary tank is a rental for the town, saving money over building a new one, and following its use, components of the system will be recycled or repurposed.

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