Kimley-Horn partnered with the City of Fort Worth to design innovative lift station and force main infrastructure...
Strategic Traffic Management
Engineered traffic flow solutions to mitigate impacts to US-60 and other roads during pipeline installation—providing space for both construction activities and local travel
Collaboration
Coordinated with local stakeholders—including the Arizona Department of Transportation and the Roosevelt Water Conservation District—as well as multidisciplinary partners to design and support installation of the new pipeline
Cost Savings
Recommended that the City of Mesa replace and relocate an outdated potable water pipeline segment that disrupted the new reclaimed waterline’s alignment, avoiding an additional project and expenses in the future
To support additional local development and enhance the region’s drinking water supply, the City of Mesa worked with the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) to reach an innovative water exchange agreement. The agreement specifies that the City will send 10 gallons of reclaimed water to GRIC for every eight gallons of Central Arizona Project water rights that they receive—ultimately aiming to provide approximately 30,000 acre-feet of reclaimed water to GRIC to fulfill the agreement.
To bring this partnership to life, the City needed to design and construct a pipeline as well as pumping and storage infrastructure to convey water between two local plants: the Northwest Water Reclamation Plant (NWWRP) and the Southeast Water Reclamation Plant (SEWRP). This connection between plants will support the increased production of reclaimed water and allow the NWWRP to convey water to the SEWRP, which will then pass that water through an established pipeline to GRIC.
Kimley-Horn was brought on to lead the design for the new reclaimed waterline. Our team performed the following services for this project:
- Pipeline design
- Roadway rehabilitation design
- Traffic analysis and engineering
- Permitting
- Stakeholder coordination
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Coordinating Pipeline Design
Besides our close partnership with the City of Mesa, our relationship with the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) helped our team members plan effectively for new traffic flows during pipeline construction. We also coordinated closely with local stakeholders, including the Roosevelt Water Conservation District, Town of Gilbert, and Flood Control District of Maricopa County. Finally, we worked closely with our multidisciplinary project partners, who provided the following services:
- EPS – survey
- Ninyo & Moore – geotechnical engineering
- T2 Utility Engineers – subsurface utility engineering
We held workshop meetings with collaborators to analyze the mapped utilities and the City of Mesa’s preferred alignment before finalizing the pipeline design. Our team had to consider how the design would impact a variety of different project and community elements—from traffic on major roadways to access for maintenance personnel in the future. By leveraging a software called Pipe Networks, we efficiently adapted the horizontal and vertical alignment and used automation for production and revisions along the way. After extensive conversations, we determined how to design the reclaimed waterline in relation to the roadway and other existing utilities and adjacent property owners.
Strategic Traffic Engineering and Pipeline Relocation
One of the most complex design challenges was coordination and design for the reclaimed waterline to cross under the US-60 freeway, which required thorough evaluation of traffic impacts and various pipeline installation methods. Other challenges included managing impacts to existing stormwater and irrigation systems, traffic, and adjacent businesses, residents, and health care facilities.
Our team used Synchro to model how construction activities would impact traffic on the freeway’s on- and off-ramps and coordinated with ADOT to determine how to minimize mobility challenges. With support from the City of Mesa, we also strategized how to allow space for construction—including trenchless technology installation methods like jack and bore that used a steel casing in addition to liner plate placement.
During the design process, our team discovered that a two-mile stretch of older potable water pipeline infrastructure was in the path of the preferred alignment. The existing pipelines were made of obsolete materials and prone to bursting, and the City of Mesa needed to replace this infrastructure eventually. To avoid a costly re-alignment and difficult pipeline installations for the Central Mesa Reuse Pipeline, we recommended that the City agree to replace and relocate the existing potable water pipelines. Our work on this replacement and relocation also helped the City save costs on future pipeline replacement by completing the work while we were installing the new pipeline between NWWRP and SEWRP. Additionally, we developed custom trenching to reduce standard trenching and asphalt replacement costs—providing further cost savings for our client.
The finished pipeline is projected to be finished in 2025. Our work on this reclaimed waterline highlights the importance of accurate utility mapping, the use of obsolete utility corridors, and strategic collaboration with a variety of multidisciplinary stakeholders and partners to achieve a successful design.
