page_title: Water tower
section_title: Spheres and spheroids
hierarchical_section_title: Water tower / Spheres and spheroids
caption_attribution_description: English: East Bay Water Tower (erected in 2017)
context_page_description: A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system for the distribution of potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. In some places, the term standpipe is used interchangeably to refer to a water tower. Water towers often operate in conjunction with underground or surface service reservoirs, which store treated water close to where it will be used. Other types of water towers may only store raw water for fire protection or industrial purposes, and may not necessarily be connected to a public water supply.
  Water towers are able to supply water even during power outages, because they rely on hydrostatic pressure produced by elevation of water to push the water into domestic and industrial water distribution systems; however, they cannot supply the water for a long time without power, because a pump is typically required to refill the tower. A water tower also serves as a reservoir to help with water needs during peak usage times. The water level in the tower typically falls during the peak usage hours of the day, and then a pump fills it back up during the night.
context_section_description: The Chicago Bridge and Iron Company has built many of the water spheres and spheroids found in the United States. The website World's Tallest Water Sphere describes the distinction between a water sphere and water spheroid thus:
  A water sphere is a type of water tower that has a large sphere at the top of its post. The sphere looks like a golf ball sitting on a tee or a round lollipop. A cross section of a sphere in any direction (east-west, north-south, or top-bottom) is a perfect circle. A water spheroid looks like a water sphere, but the top is wider than it is tall. A spheroid looks like a round pillow that is somewhat flattened. A cross section of a spheroid in two directions (east-west or north-south) is an ellipse, but in only one direction (top-bottom) is it a perfect circle. Both spheres and spheroids are special-case ellipsoids: spheres have symmetry in 3 directions, spheroids have symmetry in 2 directions. Scalene ellipsoids have 3 unequal length axes and three unequal cross sections.
  The Union Watersphere is a water tower topped with a sphere-shaped water tank in Union, New Jersey and characterized as the World's Tallest Water Sphere.
  A Star Ledger article suggested a 
  water tower in Erwin, North Carolina completed in early 2012,
  219.75 ft (66.98 m) tall and holding
  500,000 US gallons (1,900 m³), had become the World's Tallest Water Sphere. However photographs of the Erwin water tower revealed the new tower to be a water spheroid. The water tower in Braman, Oklahoma, built by the Kaw Nation and completed in 2010, is 220.6 ft (67.2 m) tall and can hold 350,000 US gallons (1,300 m³). Slightly taller than the Union Watersphere, it is also a spheroid. Another tower in Oklahoma, built in 1986 and billed as the "largest water tower in the country", is 218 ft (66 m) tall, can hold 500,000 US gallons (1,900 m³), and is located in Edmond.
  The Earthoid, a perfectly spherical tank located in Germantown, Maryland is 100 ft (30 m) tall and holds 2,000,000 US gallons (7,600 m³) of water. The name is taken from it being painted to resemble a globe of the world.
  The golf ball-shaped tank of the water tower at Gonzales, California is supported by three tubular legs and reaches about 125 ft (38 m) high.
  The Watertoren (or Water Towers) in Eindhoven, Netherlands contain three spherical tanks, each 10 m (33 ft) in diameter and capable of holding 500 cubic metres (130,000 US gal) of water, on three 43.45 m (142.6 ft) spires were completed in 1970.
caption: East Bay Township Water Tower near Traverse City, Michigan
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