Bowen Collins & Associates teamed with Carollo Engineers to provide engineering services for the Southwest Groundwater Treatment Project. This project involved the cleanup of groundwater in southwest Salt Lake County contaminated by past mining activities, while also producing potable water for use in the District’s water system. BC&A’s portion of the project included: development of nine different shallow and deep wells within the area of contamination; equipping above or below ground pump stations at each well location; designing six miles of feed water piping varying in size from 10-inch to 24-inch to convey the well water to a reverse osmosis treatment plant; and designing a byproduct disposal system, consisting of a byproduct pump station and a 22-mile, 18-inch pipeline to convey brine from the plant to the Great Salt Lake. Several innovative solutions were developed during the project to minimize cost and/or improve performance for the District. A few examples include: designing the feed water system using only non-ferrous pipeline and fitting materials to avoid iron fouling of the reverse osmosis membranes; minimizing joints on the byproduct pipeline and designing special air valves to avoid scaling from high TDS (12,000 mg/L) brine transport; and installing over half of the byproduct pipeline along a canal right-of-way to minimize costs and community disruption.

Quick Project Facts:

• Ultimate production of 12,735 acre-ft/year of clean water for municipal use
• 9 contamination containment wells with a combined production of over 5,000 gpm
• Completely non-ferrous feed water pipeline system upstream of reverse osmosis treatment process
• Unique byproduct pipeline design
• Extensive analysis and optimization of pipeline routes
• Hydraulic surge analysis and design