Project Highlight: City of Greeley – 60-inch Bellvue Water Transmission Pipeline • Providence Infrastructure Consultants

ACEC Colorado 2019 Engineering Excellence Awards

Providence and the City of Greeley are the proud recipients of an Honor Award for the ACEC Colorado 2019 Engineering Excellence Awards. On this page you’ll find links to all related materials for this project and the award.

Executive Summary

In late 2003, the City of Greeley completed an extensive planning effort that developed a strategy to meet the growing water needs of their expanding service area. Numerous water treatment and transmission alternatives were evaluated, with consideration given to public health and safety, water quality, environmental impacts, energy usage, feasibility, system reliability, cost, and operations and maintenance requirements. A major conclusion of the planning effort was that the City should increase potable water transmission capacity between the Bellvue Water Treatment Plant, located northwest of Fort Collins, and its water distribution system. As such, Greeley’s Bellvue Pipeline Project was initiated to ultimately become a long-term, critical component of the City’s larger public drinking water system.

As part of the planning efforts, the City determined that based on a variety of factors, including diminishing pipeline corridors between its Bellvue Water Treatment Plant and the City’s distribution system, that it should proactively install a pipeline large enough to meet water needs for the next 50-75 years. While a smaller pipeline could have been constructed to meet Greeley’s immediate needs, it was determined that the efforts required for such a project should be expended on a project that supports the City for many decades to come. By installing the 26-mile transmission main with a 60-inch diameter size and avoiding the need for two smaller-diameter pipelines installed 25-30 years apart, the City strategically avoided difficulties involved with rapidly changing land uses and the challenges that could be faced in the future with being able to identify a suitable pipeline alignment.

After over a decade of planning, permitting, design, and construction, the City recently completed the Bellvue Pipeline Project. This $70 million dollar project was completed over the course of 14 years and involved 8 separate construction phases. The project covered 26 miles, multiple jurisdictions, and the crossing of numerous transportation corridors, waterways, and environmentally sensitive areas.