With work nearing its end on the 52 South water project, Hillsville’s capacity to handle the water needs of residents and future businesses is at an all-time high.

In fact, residents along the corridor should already be seeing results.

At the July 13 meeting of Hillsville Town Council, Town Manager Larry South said the project was nearing its final phases and the new Sunnyside Water Tank was manually filled by the old pumps on July 7. The Sunnyside tank is located on Westover Road, between U.S. 52 and Snake Creek Road.

On July 22, the new pump station, which is located behind the Montley Hill tank, was activated.

With the Sunnyside tank, which holds 105,000 gallons of water, online Hillsville’s total water capacity, which also includes tanks on Montley Hill and Howlett Street, is at 1.2 million gallons of water.

Hillsville Water and Wastewater Director Danny Webb said the new additions to Hillsville’s water infrastructure allows for adequate water supply for future growth, once the U.S. 58 Bypass is complete and businesses begin looking at that area.

Webb said the new additions to the water system should be a huge benefit for citizens and business customers on that end of the town. In fact, he called it the biggest deal in decades as far as Hillsville’s water system is concerned.

“It really is a tremendous improvement for the customers on the south side of Hillsville,” Webb said. “It provides better pressure throughout that area and also provides fire protection throughout that area that wasn’t there before. I think I’ve said before this is one of the most significant improvements to the town’s water system since the new water plant was built almost 30 years ago.”

Webb said there’s still a little bit of work left to be done, but most of the heavy lifting on the water project is complete.

“There’s still some electrical work ongoing and I anticipate it to be probably totally complete within the next 30 days,” Webb said.