Four months may sound like a generous amount of time to replace 2,200 feet of water pipe in an urban setting, but doing so in the middle of a Colorado winter – while coordinating two crews working a mile apart – is quite a feat.
The need for this formidable task became apparent when Denver Water, which serves high-quality water to 1.5 million people in the city of Denver and surrounding suburbs, made an important discovery.
“We take a proactive approach to inspecting our pipes to locate problems and prioritize when and where to replace sections of pipeline before they fail,” said Garrick Thompson, engineering design project manager at Denver Water. “After a review of data collected from electromagnetic and acoustic fiber optic systems, we identified several problem areas along Conduit 94 [in north Denver].”
