$2 mil. water line in store to quench thirst near I-25

Larimer County’s largest water district will turn dirt next month on a $2 million project that adds to its capacity to deliver water to the county’s fast-growing eastern tier.

As planned, a 30-inch pipeline will tunnel beneath Interstate 25, connecting the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District’s large-bore supply lines to where they are most needed – the burgeoning residential, commercial and recreational developments that surround the intersection of Crossroads Boulevard and County Road 5.

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“We’re already serving those areas, but this will add capacity for us,´ said Mike DiTullio, general manager for the district that covers more than 60 square miles stretching from Loveland through Windsor and Timnath and into unincorporated Fort Collins. “In the business, it’s called looping the system.”

A water district map shows how low-volume lines have been replaced over time with larger-diameter ones, and then linked to other large pipelines in the “looping” process DiTullio describes.

TST Engineering Inc. of Fort Collins won the contract to design the new pipeline that follows the route of County Road 30; the pipeline path begins from a point just north of Boyd Lake and northwest of Fort Collins-Loveland Airport. Connell Resources Inc. of Fort Collins will construct the line.

The tunnel under I-25 will occupy much of TST’s time, working with specialist subcontractors practiced in the science of boring large, straight holes under immovable objects.

“That will be new,´ said Ed Goodman, a project engineer with TST. “It all has to do with lining up the right folks with the right equipment and getting the right alignment. I’ll be very interested in watching how that goes.”

Once the line is stretched beneath four lanes of I-25, it will continue another three-quarters of a mile where it will join a 12-inch main serving south Windsor’s Highland Meadows subdivisions and the growing Crossroads commercial centers.

Underscoring the pressing needs of the I-25 and County Road 5 corridors, DiTullio also said the district plans to build another water tower. The new tower would have more than six times the capacity of the existing tower that rises near the Wal-Mart distribution center on Crossroads Boulevard just east of I-25.

“We’re about four years away from that project,’ DiTullio said. “It’s going to look a lot like the tower that Greeley has on U.S. 34.”

Greeley’s tower, looking like a giant beige mushroom, is visible for miles from where it sits near the intersection of U.S. Highway 34 and the 34 Bypass. The “white golf ball,” as Ditullio described the district’s tower near Wal-Mart, has a capacity for 300,000 gallons of water. The new tower, built adjacent to the existing one, will accommodate up to 2 million gallons.

Funds for the pipeline and tower projects are generated through the district’s plant investment fees, those assessed on new water taps in the sprawling district.

“During the past five years we’ve spent about $12 million to $15 million on plant expansion,” DiTullio said, adding that the district’s ratepayers have not foot that bill.

“This really is a case of development paying its own way.”

The new pipeline delivers an expanded supply to the doorstep of Highland Meadows, a residential and golf community being developed by DiTullio’s son, Dino DiTullio, and partner Jon Turner.

But the younger DiTullio and builders who are constructing new Highland Meadows homes will get no breaks on district tap fees, the source of plant expansion funds.

Tap fees, as in other water districts serving Larimer and Weld counties, are pegged to the prices of a one-acre-foot share of Colorado-Big Thompson project water, the regional benchmark for residential and commercial water prices.

DiTullio’s agency tacks another $4,000 to the $12,500 CBT share price, bringing the total tap fee to $16,500 for each new home. Ninety-five percent of the district’s 12,000 water customers are residential users.

Last year alone the district raised more than $18 million on 1,124 new water taps – a reflection of the growth that is driving projects like the new pipeline and high-rise tower.

 The pipeline serving southern Windsor and northeastern Loveland will be complete by mid-June, DiTullio said.