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tahanson43206

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Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

This topic is dedicated to facilitating construction and operation of a pipeline proposed to carry sea water from the Pacific Ocean west of California, through to the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

As this new topic is created, it is hoped the facilities of the Mars Society will provide a gathering place for those many individuals and groups who will become active in the project as time proceeds.

The NewMars forum provides a convenient point of contact for participants, and the associated NewMars Dropbox provides a repository for information to be stored on a permanent basis, and in a convenient, easy to access form.

While the flow of sea water to Great Salt Lake is the inspiration for this topic, it is understood that the flow of sea water from the Pacific Ocean inland to as many customers in the Western United States who may wish to subscribe to the service will be an organizing principle for many years to come.

The flow of sea water from the Pacific Ocean into the Western United States by pipeline is NOT subject to the whims of Nature, but instead is under the management of human beings who need water (and suspended matter) delivered in such quantity as may be required, with reliability and predictability.

Everything learned in this exercise will be directly applicable to Mars, except the challenges will be greater.

(th)

For SpaceNut re Correspondence with State of California:

Dear Governor Newsom:

The subject of this inquiry is Pacific Ocean water for Utah and other States

Some adventurous person in Utah suggested importing Pacific Ocean water to refill the Great Salt Lake.

That would be a 700 mile pipeline, with a rise of 4000 feet.

However, as it happens, the State of Arizona has been mulling a pipeline from the Sea of Cortez.

That pipeline would have a run of under 200 miles and a rise of about 1000 feet.

If Arizona could tap the line to Utah, the flow would be down hill, and the arrangement would have the significant advantage of NOT involving Mexico.

However, California is a State where objectors are in position to prevent worth while solutions to pressing problems.

Are ** you ** in a position to secure California coastline for Utah's project?

If you ** are ** please move rapidly to lock in that access, because the objectors will be pouncing as soon as they hear about this proposal.

If you ** are ** able to secure the coastline, please have someone contact all the States who would be eligible to receive a flow of sea water to help them meet their future water needs.

The key player in this scenario appears to be ... ** you ** !!!

(th)

Moderator, NewMars forum, Mars Society

(th)

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

A NewMars member who goes by "Calliban" has contributed to development of a topic with the title "Prometheus..."

Here is a quote from that topic, in reply to Calliban ...

For Calliban re #116

Thank you for adding the possibility of glass to your vision of how this system might work.

While this is a topic created and managed by kbd512, I am hoping it will continue to develop into Real Universe achievement.

I am ** particularly ** interested in the potential of Trough Solar for the Pacific Pipeline topic just opened here in the forum.

The impetus comes from an Internet report of a proposal floated in upper levels of leadership in the State of Utah (US).  The report I saw recently was of the nature of a trial balloon, or raising a flag to see if anyone salutes.

It got **my** attention, without a doubt!

A successful venture to import Pacific ocean water to the Great Salt Lake via Interstate 80 would set the stage for a vigorous extension of the idea for distribution of Pacific ocean water to the interior of the American West.

The Arizona proposal to import desalinated water from the Sea of Cortez shows that considerable interest existed at the time the study was done, but I get the impression the difficulty of working with Mexico may be more than frail humans can manage.

I hasten to add that the people of Mexico are NOT the problem, as far as I can determine.

It would ** appear ** that the people of Arizona are more than capable of putting a stop to the proposal, without any help at all.

The border with Mexico is a convenient excuse for doing nothing.

On the ** other ** hand, I expect that dealing with Utah would be much easier, and the fact that water would flow down hill from Utah to Arizona is a  nice additional incentive to enter into a consortium to pull water from the Pacific.

(th)

SpaceNut

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From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

Proposed Route map

Will see if I can find pipeline size and costs in the original topic

post 10

Pima County, Ariz., official, Eric Wieduwilt, describes a new proposal for a $4.1 billion desalination project Sea of Cortez in Sonora. Then, the water would be shipped 196 miles by underground pipeline to the Tucson area, says a county study of the project. The cost could add up to $60 to $90 per month to the typical Tucson-area homeowner's water bi

post 13

Arizona legislature to consider a 1000 mile pipeline to pull water from the Mississippi River.

https://www.constructionreporter.com/ne … -this-year

12 mile-long water pipeline 66-inch diameter pipeline that will carry water from the Salt River Project to the rapidly growing northern end of Phoenix, a section of the city with more than 400,000 residents. The estimated $300 million pipeline will be built in three phases and could be completed by 2024.

https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/news/ … 81b78.html

A 10 ½ mile pipeline costing $90 million and snaking through east Mesa and through Gilbert would send a large amount of treated effluent to the Gila River Indian Community to irrigate crops.

In return, Mesa would receive rights toward supplies of potable water suitable for drinking after treatment, averting potential shortfalls an estimated four or five years from now in southeast Mesa.

https://www.phoenix.gov/pddsite/Documen … _00805.pdf

“Pipe-sizing” in which it states the prescribed minimum requirement of 12-inch in major streets, 8-inch mains in collector streets, and 6-inch mains in local streets in case of conflict regarding design minimums.

https://www.phoenix.gov/pddsite/Documen … _00142.pdf
METER SIZE & DESCRIPTION        MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE G.P.M
6” COMPOUND             1,000
8” COMPOUND             1,600

city just broke ground on a $280-million initiative to address the issue.

Known as the Drought Pipeline Project, five-and-a-half-foot pipes will soon be buried underground in the city. The pipes are made of steel, which gives them strength, city engineer Clayton Freed says.

“This pipe will be able to carry about 75 million gallons of water a day

new pipeline will move that water nine miles north to part of Phoenix where 400,000 people rely almost entirely on water from the Colorado River.

Some taking Arizona’s water future with a grain of salt

estimated the cost of a desalination plant and the 160 mile pipeline to get it to Avra Valley would cost $4.1 billion.

https://tucson.com/news/local/subscribe … 779ea.html

https://lake-powell-pipeline.org/lake-p … -expensive
Lake Powell Pipeline will waste at least $2.24 billion of Utah taxpayer money that will never be repaid

https://lisbdnet.com/how-long-does-it-t … -pipeline/

A large diameter water pipeline costs about $2 million per mile to build.

Water main installation costs an average of $50 to $150 per linear foot.

https://www.vocativ.com/culture/science … index.html

water pipeline from Boston to Los Angeles, a distance of 2,600 miles, would cost about $5.2 billion to build

Pumping water from the San Francisco Bay to Southern California requires approximately 3,200 kilowatt hours per acre-foot. That’s a bill of $970 million a year by our calculation.

http://www.twdb.texas.gov/publications/ … 42/r42.pdf
COST OF TRANSPORTING WATER BY PIPELINE

will need to look at number of hill rises as this will require pumping stations and holding ponds.

These will if solar powered be needed to determine the amount of panels for each location.

SpaceNut

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

Whilst not giving up on desalination, has anyone considered the possibility of a megaproject for shipping fresh water from other US states?

A 2m diameter pipe, with a flowspeed of 10m/s, could deliver 2.6 million tonnes of water each day.  That is one cubic kilometre per year.  It would be a huge project to construct such pipelines over entire US states.  However, we are considering piping salt water over hundreds of km to a desalination plant and then using railways to remove the salt. 

The Great Lakes appear to represent a virtually inexhaustible supply of water.  The US uses a total of 322 billion gallons of water per day, which is 1.2 cubic km.  Only a small fraction of this is consumed in drier US states, like Arizona.  Water could be transported across US states using a mixture of concrete pipelines, clay, stone or concrete lined culverts and excavated gullies.  Flow resistance increases with the square of flow speed, so pumping could make use of intermittent electricity.

The Mississipi drainage area, is served by a huge network of rivers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississ … new-01.png

Rivers in Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma could provide water for a pipeline that crosses New Mexico to Arizona.

The Arkansas River has a discharge volume of 1100m3/s, that is 4,000,000m3/hour.  Compare this to Phoenix water demand, which is around 500,000m3 per day.

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re a copy of Calliban's post about pulling water from US States that have it...

I wrote to Calliban to try to explain that states that have water (along the US/Canada border) are unlikely to willingly give up a drop to some needy entity.

There are many reasons, but the US/Canadian relationship is of long standing and significant impact.

All proposals to do ** anything ** with the Great Lakes require long periods of discussion and almost nothing every happens.

I tried to help Calliban to understand why his suggestion, though understandable from 3000 miles away, is not agreeable here.

Please try to resist the temptation to copy and paste that particular post.

***
The purpose of ** this ** yopic is to work on a proposal to ship SEA water from the Pacific Ocean inland to the Great Salt Lake.

Discussion of shipping fresh water anywhere in the United States is NOT part of this topic, unless that should become a business option that might be available to an entity that takes possession of SEA water from the proposed pipeline, and converts it to fresh water for sale to customers away from the pipeline.

The entire idea of this topic is to get AWAY from dependency upon the whims of unreliable Ma Nature.

Once systems are in place to pull sea water from the Pacific using solar power for shipment and for processing, dependency upon Ma Nature reduces to dependency upon the Sun, which seems reasonably trustworthy for the near term centuries.

(th)

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re Post #3

Thank you for the comprehensive (and helpful) collection of links and text about pipelines (in general) and proposals of various kinds.

You mentioned looking for hills ... a data point to consider is the rise along the 700 mile route.  The rise is 4200 feet.

Just as with railroads, engineers may plan a route that avoids grade changes.  As with railroads, tunnels may provide an acceptable pathway where costs justify the investment.

Since Interstate 80 already exists, and has existed for many decades now, it is possible the route of Interstate 80 is reasonable for a pipeline.

(th)

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

The post quoted below is from the Prometheus topic...

For SpaceNut .....

In your post #125, short as it is, you included a key thought that seems a good fit for this topic ...

Insolation is available in abundance along the proposed Interstate 80 Sea water pipeline route.

Water is a key feedstock for making synthetic fuel and related hydrocarbons.

Carbon dioxide can come from the air.

However, the point you made about sugar in another topic, combined with observations by Calliban about the ability of plants to collect carbon from the atmosphere, combine it with hydrogen from water they've split the "old fashioned" way, provides a reminder that all along that route between California and Utah, entrepreneurs could grow plants to feed a synthetic fuel plant.

The ideas of kbd512 seem (as I interpret them) to fit nicely into a vision of a low tech, long lived industrial corridor along that 700 miles, fed by sea water from the Pacific Ocean.

The supply of sea water from the Pacific would appear to be without practical limit.

The supply of solar power would appear to be of sufficient duration for humans to make long term investments.

(th)

SpaceNut

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

solar insolation map for the US

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re Post #8

Thanks for the image of Insolation over the United States!

SearchTerm:Insolation map of

(th)

SpaceNut

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

https://roadnow.com/i80/descriptions.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstat … California

I-80 crosses the Sierra Nevada crest at Donner Summit (also known as Euer Saddle) at an elevation of 7,239 feet (2,206 m) westbound and 7,227 feet (2,203 m) eastbound. The Donner Summit Rest Area is located at this point. The summit is located in Nevada County, California.

That is tall as NH highest peak is Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at 6,288.2 ft

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re #10

Thanks for doing the follow up research to show the elevation of the Euer Saddle crossing!

I wonder if Mr. Musk's Boring Company is up to the challenge of cutting a direct line for the pipe.

It might be cheaper to just pump up that incline, and let gravity carry the water all the way to Utah.

This problem makes the Phoenix run of 150 miles or so, and 1000 feet of elevation, seem like an easy run in comparison.

Update later on after reviewing a topographic / elevation map of Interstate 80 ....

The mountain ranges between the Pacific Coast and Utah vary in elevation.  It seems likely railroad designers must have sought the optimum pathway for their roads between Nevada and California.

It turns out that there are already highway tunnels at the higher elevations on Interstate 80, or at least that is the indication on a map I found.

(th)

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re topic ....

Today I did some preliminary investigating to try to understand the scope of the challenge ahead....

For starters, the highway sections of the Interstate Highway system are controlled by the States.

The Federal Government created the current system of Interstate highways during the Eisenhower administration.  The mechanism to accomplish that was a bill developed in Congress, under the leadership of the President.  Prior to 1956, the Federal Government had been involved in trying to coordinate highway naming in the United States.  Roads in the US started out as dirt trails (of course) and with use and investment of (usually local) resources, began to show signs they might eventually amount to something.

In any case, the US Government does NOT "own" the highway sections in California, Nevada and Utah where a possible Water Pipeline would (presumably) run.

While the idea of pulling water from the Pacific to fill the Great Salt Lake was floated by a politician in Utah, and broadcast by a reporter whose editor decided to run with the story, it won't get very far without buy-in by literally thousands of people all across the country.

While the three states directly involved are (of course) the key players, my guess (at this point) is that a bill in Congress might be the best way to start the long and involved process that would result in achievement of the first leg of what might well become an Interstate Pipeline System for sea water from the Pacific.

Since the American system of government is organized so that Senators respond only to their immediate constituents, it would take residents of California, Utah and Nevada to start the process that might result in a bill in Congress.

However, once the initial bill is in the design phase, other States can participate to the extent their citizens can contribute to the project, with goods or services.

NewMars has NO currently active members from either of those states.

However, NewMars members may well have relatives or friends living in those states.

The Interstate Highway system in the US in overseen by the Departments of Transportation of the several States, and by the federal Department of Transportation.

Thus, the federal DOT might be a reasonable place for an inquiry about interest in such a pipeline to start.

The current Administrator of the US DOT is (The Honorable) Pete Buttigieg.

(th)

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut (primarily - all others welcome)...

This is a first attempt to set out a few ideas for a Game Plan for the Interstate 80 Pipeline ....

There is an alternate future in which that pipeline becomes a reality.

This topic is a place where the probability of ** that ** alternate future might be increased.

At the outset, the probability of that particular alternate future is close to zero, but it is most emphatically NOT zero, because it already has a toehold in the Real Universe, due to the publication of a version of the idea to refill the Great Salt Lake with Pacific Ocean water.

Whoever created that idea somehow caught the eye/ear of a reporter, and that reporter persuaded an editor to publish the story.  The story made it's way to the Internet and somewhere along the line it made it's way into the NewMars forum.

Under the leadership/management of SpaceNut, the NewMars forum is a particularly nourishing environment in which to land.  The forum (through it's Administration team) provides a safe place for posts that enhance the vision, and for those that seek to prune it's growth.  Each post has an equal weight, in the sense that each post has the same opportunity to be read and considered or skipped, or something in between.

The path that leads to near certainty this particular alternate future will come to pass lies through the Congress of the United States.

The most recent model for the path is the 1956 Interstate Highway act. 

Google provides this snippet:

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956  The law authorized the construction of a 41,000-mile network of interstate highways that would span the nation. It also allocated $26 billion to pay for them. Under the terms of the law, the federal government would pay 90 percent of the cost of expressway construction.
May 27, 2010

The figure of 41,000 miles is interesting (to me for sure) because while the initial leg proposed is 700 miles (California to Great Salt Lake), it is clear by inspection of the Interstate Highway map (found by SpaceNut see link below) that a main artery along Interstate 80 can branch for hundreds of miles North and South of the main line.

A drop to Phoenix would be a natural extension.  Such a drop would eliminate the hassle of trying to negotiate with Mexico for access to the Sea of Cortez.

The line could be extended from Salt Lake City as far East as there may be needed customers.

Everywhere along all lines, there are opportunities for businesses (family farms and other businesses) to thrive, because sunlight is assured for power, and a steady, reliable supply of Pacific Ocean water would provide the foundation for agriculture and other productive activities.

Some States of the United States like nuclear power, and some do not.  Nuclear power can thrive where it is welcome, and it will shrivel to nothing where it is unwelcome.  Electricity produced by new reactors can travel wherever it is needed, and lines that parallel the water pipeline seem likely to have long term value.

Link to map:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Map+of+ … QJ6BAgFEAQ
(th)

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut (primarily ... all others welcome)

I am continuing to refine an application for development of the Great Salt Lake pipeline idea.

In the current iteration, I am seeing the project as a small pipeline to do nothing ** but ** deliver water to the Great Salt Lake.

This would NOT be a capitalist enterprise, with a profit at the end.

It would be more like the Interstate itself, which provides services that permit capitalism to flourish.

In this case, a Public/Private partnership seems indicated, with a public benefit the payoff for investment of time, thought and resources.

There are probably models for such public works in American history.

(th)

SpaceNut

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

This is where the red stated versus the blue state wars for control start when trying to get funds from the federal government for such projects. Interstate highways get funding through cooperation but these days its hard to get people to do so.

Cost of building from one state through to other destinations will not happen due to its own portion of a cost and will stop short of a destination that is past its borders. That is were federal funds come in to get a pipeline to not just be in a state but to pass through it.

Say that pipeline travels in 2 directions in that fresh water and salt water are traveling in opposing directs from the great lakes and from the oceans to feed processing plants in each state. Each state would only get a portion of the water traveling within it and not total control.

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re #15

Thanks for your perspective on the scope of the problem to be solved.

I think the first stage is to win early adopter support.  There is a part of the human population that is sympathetic to others, so I'm hoping a well designed publicity/outreach campaign would attract their support.

I noticed that once again, you have chosen to replicate the idea of Calliban to try to take fresh water from the Great Lakes to serve the needs of states to the West. This is NOT going to be acceptable to anyone along the Great Lakes, including Canada.  Please do not offer this as an idea for consideration in the future.

If you want to deliver water to states in the interior of the United States, then you have two choices ...

You can import salt water that is available from the East and West coasts and from the Gulf of Mexico.

Or you can harvest fresh water from the atmosphere as it passes over land.  Harvesting drones have their own topic.

(th)

SpaceNut

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

Numbers for the other topic by Calliban post#30

problem for salt water use

1.8m3 of salt water to produce each m3 of fresh water.

6kWh of electricity is needed to produce 1m3 of water

that means the volume of water needed daily per person is 100 gallons and 1 m cube is 264.172 gallons.
and of course if its higher 146 gallons per day its going to take even more from the ocean.

1 mile of pipe is 1.60934 km or 1609.34 meters at a diameter of a meter means

Volume of a cylinder formula: V = π r2 h. Cylinder Volume = 3.14159265 x radius 2 x height

will give for a total for the length of 10,111 cubic meters of water in the pipeline

that would give 2,669,304 gallons to move and process at way more than 6 kwh....which will give service to just 10,111 customers for each days allotment.

https://askabiologist.asu.edu/questions … oenix-area

Phoenix metropolitan region, we use about 2.3 million acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is the amount of water required to cover an acre of land with one foot of water. It is about 325,851 gallons which is about how much an average family of 4 uses in a year.

1 ac*ft    1233.4818375475 m^3
2,835,900,000 is cubic meters / 10,111 = 280,476 km or 175,298 miles of pipeline

If the Gulf of California counts, the closest is about 160 miles. is filling the length 1096 times a day

The closest Pacific Ocean beach is about 290 miles... of 604 times

so how fast can we move that much water is the factor for power to be had.

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re #17

Thanks for your continued interest in, and support of this topic!

Thanks for quoting Calliban regarding the amount of fresh water that is (apparently) retrieved from sea water using current techniques.

If I understand the quote correctly, 1 cubic meter of fresh water is extracted from 1.8 cubic meter of sea water.  The remaining .8 cubic meter of brine is currently returned to the ocean.

These numbers are certainly interesting, but they do not apply to the primary objective of the Salt Lake City pipeline.

The objective for the primary pipeline is to replenish the Great Salt lake.

The idea of building secondary pipelines to deliver sea water to the inland United States is a secondary consideration.

I think (at this point) the best strategy to increase chances this pipeline comes into service, is to concentrate on the objective of delivering sea water to the Great Salt Lake as is.  The sea water is almost "fresh" water from the perspective of the Great Salt Lake.

The only power needed for the primary pipeline is the power needed to pump the water up the Western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California.  The flow should be down hill from the summit.

As reported elsewhere (possibly this topic?) a pipeline was just put into service in Texas, to balance fresh water between two locations in Texas. That pipeline is (if I am remembering correctly) 150 miles in length, or just about half of what is required to refill the Great Salt Lake.

Your post contains useful calculations:

SearchTerm:pipe volume for water transfer
SearchTerm:volume of pipe for water transfer
SearchTerm:Water volume of pipe for transfer

(th)

SpaceNut

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

google for Parts of Utah's Great Salt Lake are 10 times saltier than the ocean.

though we have brine as a left over for processing that will mean we need since moving sea water to the salt lake we will need a return path back to the ocean as we can not dump it into fresh water streams.

Desperate Lawmakers Discuss Piping Ocean Water to Fill Great Salt Lake; A Utah legislative commission voted to study the possibility of building a pipeline from the Pacific Ocean to the drying lake.

The Great Salt Lake is the largest saline lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth largest in the world.

Lake Levels

Due to its shallowness (an average of 14 feet deep and a maximum of 35 feet deep), the water level can fall dramatically during dry years and rise during wet years. When snow pack melts in the spring, the lake usually rises about 2 feet. In years with above-average snow pack, it can go up 3- to 4-feet. In 2021, the elevation only went up about 6 inches because of the poor snow pack.

lets try and give a sense of the amount of water to move. as for water to go up hill is under pressure but with the pipe still closed all the way to the lake its still needs to be pushed even if its going to flow due to gravity as its the diameter of the pipe that makes it just run out as the end gets air into it taking up some of the diameter of that exit.

https://www.bigsprinkler.com/faq/how-fa … -sprinkler

o push water uphill it will require pressure and if water goes downhill then you will gain pressure. An easy calculation to know is that for every 10 feet of rise you lose -4.33 psi. For every 10 feet of fall in elevation, you will gain +4.33 psi.

Sure its for a hose but all we are doing is increasing the diameter which changes the mass we must push.

https://www.absolutewaterpumps.com/blog … ter-uphill

you also commented on a Texas sea water pipeline.

San Antonio Pipeline Continues Texas Water Rush

sort of reminds me a bit about Venice...

https://www.twdb.texas.gov/waterplannin … ojects.pdf

https://www.twdb.texas.gov/innovativewa … awater.asp

Temporary Saltwater Pipelines: Current Practice and Recommendations

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re Post #19

Thank you for finding the link to the proposal for a pipeline!

Regarding the volume of water to be supplied .... The area of the lake times the depth when it is full would give us a sense of the requirement.

Regarding the air entering the pipe ... how is that possible?

The pipe should NOT have any leaks, anywhere along the 300 miles.

Why would air enter at the end?

The water would be gushing out under the pressure of all the tons backed up in the pipe all the way to the Sierra Nevada mountains.

A valve at the end would seem prudent, to regulate the flow.

If you think about the outlet from Hoover Dam, you might have a sense of why air would not be likely to enter the pipe.

The high point of the run is 4000 feet, and the height of Great Salt Lake is about 1000 feet. That means you'd have a head of 3000 feet wanting to push out the end of the pipe. 

***
I just learned that a young gent known to a relative has been building a career in California as a project manager for a water enterprise of some size.   The Great Salt Lake pipeline would be a worthy project for an aspiring manager, I would think.

(th)

tahanson43206

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Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mesa-moving- … 00021.html

Surprise!  An actual pipeline project !!!

East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz.)
Mesa moving on massive pipeline for more water

Scott Shumaker, East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz.)

Mon, June 20, 2022, 10:17 AM

Jun. 20—Mesa city officials have been talking about the Central Mesa Reuse Pipeline for years, and the big infrastructure project may take a step closer to reality tomorrow, June 20, when City Council will consider selecting a contractor for the project and awarding $3 million for preconstruction services.

When finished, the planned 3-foot-wide underground pipeline would move millions of gallons of reclaimed wastewater a day 10 miles south from the Northwest Wastewater treatment plant at Thomas Road and Val Vista Drive for ultimate delivery to the Gila River Indian Community's agricultural fields.

With an estimated $90 million price tag, the project is a major undertaking, both financially and in terms of public inconvenience during construction, which could last up to two years.

But the city believes the costs and impacts will be worth it, potentially expanding Mesa's access to Colorado River water at a relatively cheap price.

That's vital for continued growth, leaders say, particularly for southeast Mesa, where industrial growth is rapid and current and prospective users are seeking access to large volumes of water.

Following a study of routes, officials selected a path for the pipeline completely within city rights-of-way beneath public streets, meaning crews will have to dig up portions of roadways to install the pipeline.

The pipeline route heads south down Val Vista Drive until McLellan Road, where it turns east before arriving at Greenfield Road via 40th Street and Brown Road. The pipeline then follows Greenfield Road south, crosses US 60, then turns southwest before connecting with an existing pipeline at Recker and Houston Roads.

Supervising Engineer Jesse Heywood said construction on the pipeline is planned to begin May 2023.

"Construction will be phased to limit traffic impacts," a staff report to council states. "Public access will be maintained to businesses and local streets as required per contract documents. Additional street impacts include potential left turn restrictions, lane closures and other temporary restrictions."

Three construction companies submitted Statements of Qualification in July of 2021, and city staff recommend awarding Garney Companies Inc the contract. Garney's Arizona office is located in Mesa, and the company is one of the city's current utility construction service providers.

The council report states that a Guaranteed Maximum Price for the project will be set during the last phase of the preconstruction process.

City Manager Chris Brady told the council in 2021 that the pipeline project would likely be fully or partially funded by future bond packages.

Reclaimed water

Many cities in the Southwest are looking to their treated effluent water to stretch their water portfolios, using reclaimed water to irrigate places like golf courses and city parks — locations that might otherwise use drinking water.

Mesa's Northwest water treatment plant can churn out up to 18 million gallons of effluent a day, but the city has a problem: it currently has limited options for delivering that water.

It lacks infrastructure in the form of pipes to send it around the city for beneficial uses.

Most of the Northwest Water Reclamation Plant effluent is currently sent underground via the Salt River Project's Granite Reef Underground Storage Project, a basin at the Salt River bed where surface water is absorbed into the aquifer.

When a storm in 2020 knocked GRUSP offline, Mesa sent effluent down the Salt River channel for about a year.

While storage has benefits — Mesa Water Resources Director Chris Hassert told city council in May the city has banked almost six years' worth of water underground and managers think they can make the city's effluent work harder by building the Central Mesa pipeline.

Mesa has a 99-year deal with the Gila River Indian Community to trade effluent water for Colorado River water credits from the Central Arizona Project. With the new pipeline, Mesa would be able to increase the effluent it trades to GRIC from 6,800 acre-feet per year to as much as 20,000 acre-feet, Hassert said.

Mesa only gets 80% of the water it sends to GRIC back in CAP credits, but city officials still consider that a bargain, since delivering the treated effluent costs them less than it would to buy the CAP water at market rates.

Betting on the Expensive Option

City officials studied a less costly way to deliver Northwest plant effluent to GRIC via an existing canal but rejected it in favor of a new pipeline using rights-of-way beneath city streets.

The rejected option was to make an agreement with the Roosevelt Water Conservation District to share its main canal, which begins near the Northwest water treatment plant and runs to GRIC at Hunt Highway.

Mesa's consultants estimated $20 million in canal improvement would be necessary to transport Mesa's effluent, plus several smaller projects needed to make it work.

The upfront costs of forging a water transport agreement with RWCD were lower than those of building the pipeline. Even factoring in costs incurred over 40 years, including transport fees and water loss, the canal was figured to cost $18 million less than a pipeline.

A study prepared by Dibble Engineering in November 2020 reported that RWCD was willing to share the costs of canal upgrades and work with the city to resolve other issues associated with transporting the city's effluent.

But based on a scoring system of the different alternatives that awarded points for different categories like cost, risk and autonomy, Dibble ranked the pipeline under city streets No. 1, and the city went with that recommendation.

The pipeline scored particularly high on autonomy, meaning the city is in greater control of its own pipeline than a shared canal. A pipeline owned by the city requires fewer legal agreements with outside entities.

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That's $9,000,000 per mile, if I understand the article correctly.

That price per mile would equate to 700 * 9,000,000 for the Interstate 80 line >> 6.3x10^9 (2,700,000,000)

Rounding up to the nearest billion, and taking into account crossing the mountains, that would be $7B(USD) for the Great Salt Lake pipeline.

Distance corrected from 300 to 700 on 2022/07/22 (th)

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

Thanks for the cost confirmation.

I am wondering if sharing the pipeline costs while giving up some of the construction across the many states since they might want to while the hole we dig is open for the pipeline as to making the hole large enough to bring sea water to other drop locations along the way. This create a water corridor instead of multiple paths across other locations which might give push back of not in my back yard construction by those other states. Even if those states are not yet ready for going from there end of the line that is laid for them so long as they fund the position of the corridor that they are making use of.

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,428

Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re #22

Thanks for noting the (possible) costs of the (hypothetical) Interestate 80 pipeline.

It seems to me the $7B(USD) figure might be an upper bound ... The $9,000,000 per mile figure would (presumably) come from routing through a dense urban area. On the other hand, the land would (presumably) be flat for that run.  Setting the pipe below ground would seem beneficial for dealing with weather changes that beset the region along Interstate 80.

I like your idea of planning for multiple beneficiaries of the pipeline, but I suspect that concentration on the public benefit aspect would increase chances of success.  The for-profit potential of a source of water that is NOT nature dependent seems high to me, but the pipeline could be justified for saving the Great Salt Lake, and any additional benefits could flow from completing the project.

It would seem prudent to size the pipeline for potential additional usage beyond Great Salt Lake, but on the other hand, the size must be chosen for the project to succeed as a public works undertaking.  The major challenges are human, not technical.  Humans know well how to transport liquids over long distances by pipeline. The issues in this case start with access to the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.  The objections of some Californians have caused desalination proposals to fail, and they might easily prevent Utah from accessing sea water, even if the purpose is to refill the Great Salt Lake.

At least the Great Salt Lake proposal would NOT involve returning brine to the ocean, which has been a sore point for those who object to desalination plants.

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

Brine would exit into the salt lake I would presume but that would tend to make it possibly to salty for life is the question.
another map that shows the counties that we might need to work with.

this is the topography

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,428

Re: Interstate 80 San Francisco Salt Lake City Water Pipeline

For SpaceNut re Post #24

Thanks for those ** really ** helpful maps!

Regarding brine ... we've discussed this before, but it is difficult to keep track of everything....

The Great Salt Lake, like the Dead Sea in Palestine, is far saltier than the world's oceans.

In fact, one of the attractions at the time I visited the Great Salt Lake, was to float in the water like a cork.

The water arriving from the Pacific Ocean would be like fresh water in comparison... it would dilute the Great Salt Lake until evaporation returns the lake to normal.

That line about evaporation caught my eye after i wrote it ....

It would seem to be a shame to transport sea water 700 miles, just to let it evaporate. (corrected distance 2022/07/22)

On the other hand, Ma Nature has been delivering fresh water to the lake for a few million years until recently.

Returning the Great Salt Lake to normal fill level would be an aesthetic choice by humans.  $3B(USD) seems (on the face of it) to be a lot to pay for aesthetics.

However, I ** just ** saw a report that the Cleveland Browns are thinking about asking for a $1B(USD) replacement stadium, to be funded by taxpayers.

Three football stadiums would cover the Great Salt Lake refill operation. (give or take a few hundred million).

(th)