From: In Hard Times, Money for Water
Sandy City, Utahs, Sandy Ditches Piped, Powered
Since 1894, settlers in a corner
of the Salt Lake Valley, UT, have drawn their water from the reservoir of the
Bell Canyon Irrigation Company (BCIC). By late summer each year, the supply is
running pretty low.
Adding to the demand brought on by
growth, two decades ago the majority owner of BCIC, Sandy City (population
90,000), diverted their share of water to a treatment facility. As public
utilities director Shane Pace recounts, the re-routing “caused a lot of concern
with other shareholders and resulted in a big meeting.
“It wasn’t a real positive meeting
for us,” he says.
Sandy City sought to minimize the
adverse impact, but then in the early 1990s, the aged dam began to leak. This
dropped the water level 30 feet, drastically cutting the water supply. Repairs
were sought—but inspectors denied permission, after the dam was found to be
sitting astride a fault-line.
What to do?
The answer was not much of a
mystery; the city’s name gives the hint. As irrigation water travels along its
several miles of 3-feet-wide ditches cut into the sandy substrate, lots of it
must be seeping away. The same is true with most if not all unlined trenches.
BCIC’s president Bob Augenstein measured the loss at every 5,000 feet and found
that about 70% was never making it to the end of the ditch.
Simply recovering this loss would
just about solve everything. Local engineers Bowen, Collins & Associates, of
Draper, UT, recommended abandoning the gravity ditches and replacing them with
HDPE pipe. With a design life rating at 50 years at the pressure rating limit,
the material can be welded to assure no leakage; pipes are readily slip-lined
and buried; and diameters would taper from 18 inches at the source to 12 inches
at about halfway, with branches of 8 or 6 inches, thereby assuring proper
pressure.
The only question now is: What
about funding? Among several options, the best seemed to be to phase the project
over a few years, to spread the cost out and also to share the expenses among
stakeholders.
 |
Photo:
Bell Canyon Irrigation Company
Several miles of HDPE piping were installed and will conserve an estimated
several hundred acre-feet per year of water, while also resolving local conflicts. |
For phase one (a 5,300-foot
stretch of the upper portion, completed in 2007), Sandy City appropriated
$554,000. A grant from the Bureau of Reclamation added $300,000. Estimated
annual water savings after the first phase completion came to “just shy of 1,000
acre-feet,” according to Augenstein, and enabled more water to reach the rest of
the shareholders after the Sandy City diverted their water to the treatment
plant.
With that success, it was easy to
cost-justify phase two, of approximately equal length, in spring 2008. BCIC
capitalized its share this time—$447,000—by selling shares in another irrigation
company. The Bureau of Reclamation helped with another $300,000.
At this stage, the
before-and-after impact was impressive already. When delivering water in
seeping, unlined ditches, Augenstein recalls, “We were running at nine to 10 cfs
[cubic feet per second]. But this past year [2008], with two-thirds of the route
piped and one-third still in a ditch, we’re now down to just three cfs max. I’m
saving two-thirds of the available water; there’s no overflows and no
waste.”
The pipe also provides over
120,000 gallons of water storage, enabling the replacement of eight or nine
wastefully seeping ponds.
Under Pressure to Conserve
Providing still more efficiency,
the piped water is controlled by two pressure-sustaining valves in vaults spaced
a mile or so apart. Along the way, newly installed telemetry sends data by radio
to the upper end of the pipeline; the control valve can be opened and closed
remotely, using pressure sensors. Augenstein notes that having this telemetry in
place early in the game made it easier to win support and funding for the
subsequent phases.
More water conservation is also
being achieved on lateral elements, by replacing former flood-irrigation
practices with mandatory sprinkler systems that yield no more than the
recommended 1.5 inches of water per week.
“That’s much more efficient use,”
he notes.
Coming up imminently, an
8,000-foot third phase of piping will open in April 2009; it’s funded with a
$540,000 loan from the Utah State Board of Water Resources, and $100,000 from
the company in a cost sharing arrangement. The resulting gain in water is
projected at a total of 1,400 acre-feet per year. All excess will be sold to
thirsty Utah towns nearby, and proceeds will repay the loan.
Augenstein sums up: “One purpose
of these grants is to minimize conflict associated with water.”
In this case, the grants
“certainly succeeded multiple times,” enabling an equitable solution for the
cities, irrigation companies, and shareholders, as each also shared in the
cost.
“Instead of fighting each other,
we were working together to solve the issues, so that we all could be satisfied
in the end,” he says.
March-April 2009
From: In Hard Times, Money for Water
Sandy City, Utahs, Sandy Ditches Piped, Powered
Since 1894, settlers in a corner
of the Salt Lake Valley, UT, have drawn their water from the reservoir of the
Bell Canyon Irrigation Company (BCIC). By late summer each year, the supply is
running pretty low.
Adding to the demand brought on by
growth, two decades ago the majority owner of BCIC, Sandy City (population
90,000), diverted their share of water to a treatment facility. As public
utilities director Shane Pace recounts, the re-routing “caused a lot of concern
with other shareholders and resulted in a big meeting.
“It wasn’t a real positive meeting
for us,” he says.
Sandy City sought to minimize the
adverse impact, but then in the early 1990s, the aged dam began to leak. This
dropped the water level 30 feet, drastically cutting the water supply. Repairs
were sought—but inspectors denied permission, after the dam was found to be
sitting astride a fault-line.
What to do?
The answer was not much of a
mystery; the city’s name gives the hint. As irrigation water travels along its
several miles of 3-feet-wide ditches cut into the sandy substrate, lots of it
must be seeping away. The same is true with most if not all unlined trenches.
BCIC’s president Bob Augenstein measured the loss at every 5,000 feet and found
that about 70% was never making it to the end of the ditch.
Simply recovering this loss would
just about solve everything. Local engineers Bowen, Collins & Associates, of
Draper, UT, recommended abandoning the gravity ditches and replacing them with
HDPE pipe. With a design life rating at 50 years at the pressure rating limit,
the material can be welded to assure no leakage; pipes are readily slip-lined
and buried; and diameters would taper from 18 inches at the source to 12 inches
at about halfway, with branches of 8 or 6 inches, thereby assuring proper
pressure.
The only question now is: What
about funding? Among several options, the best seemed to be to phase the project
over a few years, to spread the cost out and also to share the expenses among
stakeholders.
|
Photo:
Bell Canyon Irrigation Company
Several miles of HDPE piping were installed and will conserve an estimated
several hundred acre-feet per year of water, while also resolving local conflicts. |
For phase one (a 5,300-foot
stretch of the upper portion, completed in 2007), Sandy City appropriated
$554,000. A grant from the Bureau of Reclamation added $300,000. Estimated
annual water savings after the first phase completion came to “just shy of 1,000
acre-feet,” according to Augenstein, and enabled more water to reach the rest of
the shareholders after the Sandy City diverted their water to the treatment
plant.
With that success, it was easy to
cost-justify phase two, of approximately equal length, in spring 2008. BCIC
capitalized its share this time—$447,000—by selling shares in another irrigation
company. The Bureau of Reclamation helped with another $300,000.
At this stage, the
before-and-after impact was impressive already. When delivering water in
seeping, unlined ditches, Augenstein recalls, “We were running at nine to 10 cfs
[cubic feet per second]. But this past year [2008], with two-thirds of the route
piped and one-third still in a ditch, we’re now down to just three cfs max. I’m
saving two-thirds of the available water; there’s no overflows and no
waste.”
The pipe also provides over
120,000 gallons of water storage, enabling the replacement of eight or nine
wastefully seeping ponds.
Under Pressure to Conserve
Providing still more efficiency,
the piped water is controlled by two pressure-sustaining valves in vaults spaced
a mile or so apart. Along the way, newly installed telemetry sends data by radio
to the upper end of the pipeline; the control valve can be opened and closed
remotely, using pressure sensors. Augenstein notes that having this telemetry in
place early in the game made it easier to win support and funding for the
subsequent phases.
More water conservation is also
being achieved on lateral elements, by replacing former flood-irrigation
practices with mandatory sprinkler systems that yield no more than the
recommended 1.5 inches of water per week.
“That’s much more efficient use,”
he notes.
Coming up imminently, an
8,000-foot third phase of piping will open in April 2009; it’s funded with a
$540,000 loan from the Utah State Board of Water Resources, and $100,000 from
the company in a cost sharing arrangement. The resulting gain in water is
projected at a total of 1,400 acre-feet per year. All excess will be sold to
thirsty Utah towns nearby, and proceeds will repay the loan.
Augenstein sums up: “One purpose
of these grants is to minimize conflict associated with water.”
In this case, the grants
“certainly succeeded multiple times,” enabling an equitable solution for the
cities, irrigation companies, and shareholders, as each also shared in the
cost.
“Instead of fighting each other,
we were working together to solve the issues, so that we all could be satisfied
in the end,” he says.