WCA Construction LLC has been awarded an inaugural contract by the Bureau of Reclamation for construction of the Arkansas Valley Conduit Project at Pueblo Dam that will deliver clean water from Pueblo Reservoir to people in southeastern Colorado.
The inaugural contract of $42,988,099.79 will fund the construction of the first Boone Reach trunk line section, including a 6-mile stretch of pipeline from the eastern end of Pueblo Water’s system to Boone, Colo., a Sept. 29 Bureau of Reclamation news release said.
“Now more than ever, people in the Arkansas River Valley understand the immense value of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project and the Arkansas Valley Conduit,” Eastern Colorado Area Manager Jeff Rieker said in the release. “We look forward to the day when these residents can open the faucet and know that their drinking water is safe and healthy.”
A groundbreaking ceremony took place Oct. 3, 2020, for the project that will go through 230 miles of pipelines to 40 communities, an Oct. 3, 2020, Department of the Interior news release said.
“For nearly 60 years, Colorado’s leaders of both political parties have been working to move the Arkansas Valley Conduit forward. Over the last three years, the forceful advocacy of Senator Gardner working with the Trump administration has led to today’s significant milestone,” U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said in the 2020 release. “This project will provide reliable clean water for 50,000 people living in 40 rural communities across southern Colorado.”
Work will begin in spring of 2023 under the inaugural contract, with the section scheduled to be completed in 2024, the September release said.
“The AVC project will use Pueblo Water’s existing infrastructure to treat and deliver AVC water from Pueblo Reservoir to a connection point east of the city of Pueblo along U.S. Highway 50,” the Reclamation release said. “The water will be either Fryingpan-Arkansas Project water or from participants’ water portfolios, not from Pueblo Water’s resources.”
Agreements exist that will allow Reclamation to construct the trunk line, a treatment plant and water tanks, according to the September release.
The Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District will coordinate with local communities to fund and build the AVC delivery pipelines, according to the Reclamation release. The AVC will connect 39 water systems along the 130-mile route to Lamar, Colo., and will bring water from the Pueblo Reservoir to Bent, Crowley, Kiowa, Otero, Prowers and Pueblo counties.
