Re: Why the ladder

On both water tanks we've worked on, Rico and Needleton, there is a floor beneath the roof of the tank, so the fellow going through the hatch in Dave's picture wasn't about to take a bath. There was another hatch inside the tank. I would think the floor helped keep birds, trash, and related blowing stuff from fouling the water, plus a working surface. The tanks also collected silt on the bottoms and I suspect the removal of that material was a periodic maintenance task. The Needleton tank had about 9 inches of fine dirt on the tank bottom as did the Rico tank.

Fritz