BULLDOZERS BUILDING BEAUTY?—Usually a bulldozer plowing the top of a hill isn’t a welcome sight to environmentalists. But the big machines visible at the top of Lone Oak Drive from Conejo School Road are installing an underground concrete reservoir to replace a 45-year-old above-ground tank that’s corroded and seismically unsafe. It’s unusual to see bulldozers clearing the top of a hillside in Thousand Oaks, but that’s what’s happening beside an old water tank.

Lovers of open space needn’t worry. By the end of 2012, the $13- million construction work should be finished and the 45-year-old above-ground 7-million-gallon steel water tank will have disappeared.

Calleguas Municipal Water District is replacing the seismically unsafe, corroding tank at 568 Lone Oak Drive with two buried concrete reservoirs that will be covered with soil and landscaping.

“So far they’ve laid the floor for a new tank,” said Eric Bergh, Calleguas manager.

To maintain necessary water storage for Thousand Oaks customers during construction, Calleguas is building one of the reservoirs—a 2.5-million-gallon tank—before it removes the existing tank.

“We couldn’t get along without the original tank, so we couldn’t just tear it down,” Bergh said. When the first of the new tanks is up and running smoothly, NANCY NEEDHAM/Acorn Newspapers Calleguas will tear down the old tank and install the second new tank, which will hold 4.4 million gallons, in its place. The two reservoirs combined will have the same storage capacity as the tank built in the early 1960s.

“This is all because there’s been an increase in seismic standards. It was obvious it needed to be replaced,” Bergh said.

Those living in homes below the old tank will appreciate another planned upgrade—the installation of a new 20-inch drain line in Lone Oak Drive. The drain will allow the tank’s water to flow into a storm drain on Hillcrest Drive in the event of an emergency.

“The drains will be a significant improvement,” Bergh said.

So, water tank lovers, enjoy the site of that shiny metal structure on the hill. (The top of the Civic Arts Plaza parking lot affords a good view of the tank.)

It won’t be there much longer.