OREM, Utah — Crews are drilling a tunnel in the side of a mountain to reroute a crucial water pipeline that supplies water to more than 1.6 million Utahns along the Wasatch Front.
Drills carved away at rock for the 1,000-foot tunnel that will reroute an aqueduct taking water from the Colorado River Basin in eastern Utah down Provo Canyon and into Utah and Salt Lake counties.
"In the event of an earthquake this project is to provide us with an opportunity — or the best chance — of providing water," said Chris Elison, who is overseeing the project for the Central Utah Water Conservancy District.
FOX 13 News got a tour of the $100 million project on Thursday. The current pipe is in a troubled area where there is an active landslide and it crosses two segments of the Wasatch Fault.
"To take the pipe out and fix it would be a big deal and then it’s just really put a Band-Aid on it," Elison said.
Construction crews are replacing the segments of pipeline with a new type of Kubota pipe imported from Japan that is designed to be more resilient in an earthquake. It bends and stretches as the ground moves.
"Rather than have a single piece of pipe that’s going to try to flex during the earthquake? It’s got a rubber gasket, a rubber gasket, a rubber gasket, a rubber gasket to move during the inevitable earthquake," said Randy Lindwall with WWClyde, the construction company working on the project, motioning to the areas of pipe that will flex and bend in a disaster.
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The goal of the pipe and the entire project is to ensure that a large chunk of the Wasatch Front's drinking water supply does not get cut off in the event of a major earthquake. It is expected to be completed next year.
"These are the type of projects that are looking at the future to help us get ready for the next hundred years along the Wasatch Front," said Rep. David Shallenberger, R-Orem, who also toured the project on Thursday.
Stacie Berardi, who tagged along with her engineering student son, was impressed with the project.
"I just had no idea what they're doing," she said. "To get our water? Unbelievable."
This article is published through the Colorado River Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative supported by the Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air at Utah State University. See all of our stories about how Utahns are impacted by the Colorado River at greatsaltlakenews.org/coloradoriver
