May 2016, Vol. 71 No. 5
Features
Water Delivery Commences For Colorado’s Southern Delivery System
The Southern Delivery System (SDS), one of the largest water projects under construction in the western United States, began the first phase of commercial operation in late April.
Community leaders, contractors and partner communities celebrated the end of a busy 2015 with significant progress and on-schedule construction efforts for SDS, which is geared to deliver up to 50 million gallons of water each day.
The pipe will transport water stored in Pueblo Reservoir north to Colorado Springs, the second largest city in the state, and to the growing southern Colorado communities of Pueblo West, Fountain and Security, serving as many as three-quarters of a million residents through 2040.
Earlier this year, the SDS proved its worth when it was tapped to supply water to Pueblo West Metropolitan District’s 11,000 households and businesses. A discovered leak in Pueblo West’s water line required the Metro District to seek permission from the Bureau of Reclamation for temporary use of SDS infrastructure in delivering water to their community. The leak was located on a segment of the pipe near the bank of the Arkansas River. At the time of the leak, Pueblo West still relied on a single, 24-inch diameter pipe, constructed in the 1980s, to deliver water to its community.
The SDS partners agreed to the temporary use of the project, deeming it essential to Pueblo West’s service of its customers. The temporary use of the pipeline required cooperation and approval from Pueblo County, Pueblo West, Colorado Springs Utilities and the Bureau of Reclamation. Within hours of the leak discovery, the parties agreed to the coordination of system use.
SDS Program Director John Fredell said the partners were pleased to assist Pueblo West in continuing uninterrupted water delivery to its customer base.
“One of the great benefits of SDS for Pueblo West and the other project partners is the added reliability it brings to all our water systems, Fredell said.
“It provides all of us another way to get water from Pueblo Dam to our communities and we are so pleased it benefited Pueblo West during the emergency situations they have encountered over the past year.”
Celebration
This time last year, officials were celebrating the completion of more than 7,000 50-foot sections of mostly 66-inch diameter, welded-steel blue pipe that were installed in areas that included residential neighborhoods in Pueblo West.
Last May, Fredell projected completion at nearly $150 million under budget. At the close of February 2016, the actual cost of the project sat at $718 million – $212 million under budget.
Denver-based Northwest Pipe manufactured the SDS pipe. Three prime contractors selected through competitive bid processes managed the installation of different sections through Pueblo and El Paso counties. Garney Construction installed 23 miles of SDS pipeline in various areas, including work at Lake Pueblo State Park, Pueblo West, at the tunnel location and in Colorado Springs. Pueblo County-based ASI/HCP Constructors built the Pueblo Dam Connection and installed nearly five miles of pipe through Lake Pueblo State Park and about nine miles of pipe in southern El Paso County east of Fountain; and Layne Heavy Civil put in about eight miles of pipe in Pueblo County and six miles in El Paso County.
The $125 million SDS water treatment plant is the largest component of the SDS project, which has been under construction since March 2013, reaching project Substantial Completion earlier this year, almost exactly three years after construction commenced.
At the end of February, construction contractor McCarthy Building Companies had continued flow testing and focused on remaining construction activities, which included security system installation, cathodic protection system, fire system and certification and documentation of operating systems. Operations training also continued, covering operation of vertical turbine pumps, instrumentation and controls systems and variable frequency drives.
The 82,000 square-foot plant is an advanced water treatment facility that will use ozone and biological filtration to treat water piped from Pueblo Reservoir. The 100-acre facility holds a 10-million-gallon raw water storage tank, a 7-million-gallon treated water storage tank and a finished water pump station. The plant treats up to 50 million gallons of water per day, but capacity can be expanded to treat up to 130 million gallons of water per day.
For more information on the SDS project, visit www.sdswater.org.
Comments