Irrigation Water Line
East Cherry Creek Valley Water and Sanitation District
Centennial, Colorado

East Cherry Creek Valley Water & Sanitation District (ECCV) and Meurer & Associates developed a unique approach to efficiently increase water to ECCV’s system without purchasing additional water.  The project encompassed the planning, design and construction of a separate irrigation water system.  The new water source is residential irrigation that infiltrates into the ground and is collected and used to irrigate neighborhood parks, schools, and Home Owner Association (HOA) landscape tracts in ECCV’s Piney Creek Basin.  Without purchasing additional water, this unique project will add approximately 358.4 million gallons of water per year to ECCV’s inventory.  This water was previously “lost” as infiltration into Piney Creek from residential irrigation.  Collecting this water and using it for further irrigation results in a sustainable water source and a win-win situation for all involved.

ECCV’s potable water source is supplied by deep-water wells drilled into the Laramie-Fox Hills and Arapahoe aquifers.  As early as 1995, ECCV and a group of consultants worked together to obtain the right from the State of Colorado to collect irrigation infiltration water in the Piney Creek Basin.  Recognizing that a percentage of water being used by residents to irrigate their landscaping was infiltrating into the ground and flowing underground into Piney Creek, ECCV set out to collect that water in order to use it for additional irrigation.  Lysimeters, which are underground devices used to collect water from the pore spaces of soils, were used to measure the amount of water that customers were using to irrigate their landscaping.  This information was used in a demand study that sought to determine how much land could be irrigated with the anticipated supply.  At the same time, a supply study was generated to estimate the amount of water that could be collected from the infiltration.

Currently, the Irrigation Project enables the District to utilize up to 162.9 million gallons of water per year in order to irrigate 200 acres of parks, schools and landscape tracts in ECCV.  Eventually, this new water source will irrigate up to 350 acres of area with 358.4 million gallons of water per year.  Benefits of this system include additional water to the District and a corresponding reduction in the demand on the potable water system. 

Pumped from alluvial wells, the collected water is chlorinated and piped four miles to a 2.4 million gallon storage facility.  Water is distributed to various areas for irrigation purposes through a series of branch lines.  The components of the system consist of the following:

• 3 alluvial wells, with associated pump vaults and an electrical control building.
• A 2.4 million gallon post-tensioned concrete reservoir.
• 20,000 feet of 16”- 30” water main line and 20,000 feet of 4”- 8” branch lines.
• A booster pump station to supply irrigation water to another pressure zone.
• Additional branch lines, expanding the system to additional areas within ECCV.

The experienced team headed by Meurer & Associates consisted of Paul Goldfain, P.E., Associate Principal, Jodi Villa, P.E., Project Manager and Craig Patterson, P.E., Project Engineer.