For the past couple of years, Huittinen has been marked by two almost identical water towers.
The old 26-meter tower was completed in 1974 — the same year Finland’s national ice hockey team lost its first World Championship medal in the controversial case of goalie Stig Wetzell testing positive for doping.
In January 2016, with the completion of a new 30-meter water tower, the town of Huittinen was left with one tower too many. Similar structural damage to that which caused the collapse of a tower in Jyväskylä was discovered in the old tower, prompting the decision to dismantle it.
Demolition of the old tower began in October. The work didn’t go completely without complications: inside the tower, strips of fiberboard were found that hadn’t been detected in the hazardous material report. Nor were these fiberboards marked in the original construction drawings.
The work was paused for further investigation, and tests of the boards revealed that they contained chrysotile asbestos. The base elements also turned out to be different from those shown in the original plans and demolition design.
The asbestos removal and the unexpected base structure delayed the project by about two weeks, but now the site is already in its final stages.
