Snaking up a steep red sandstone hill, two miles south of Gunlock Reservoir, a line of black pipe will carry 2,000 gallons of water per minute (or 2.8 million gallons of water per day) to west-side St. George residents.
Water is always a concern in desert country, and this latest addition to the St. George culinary system enables the city to more than adequately handle the growth and projected future growth, said Philip Solomon of St. George City Water and Power.With this culinary water project, Solomon says his department is also drilling two wells below Gunlock Reservoir. The flow from these wells will be added to the flow taken from the Gunlock Reservoir and piped in this 10-mile waterline from Gunlock Reservoir to St. George.
The Gunlock Reservoir and well project have not been ordinary for three reasons, Solomon said. There has been a rough and mountainous terrain to cross from the reservoir until the pipe reaches the Shivwit Indian Reservation, where the waterline enters the reservation before crossing Ivins boundaries.
"We needed and found a great deal of cooperation from both the Shivwit Tribal Council and the city of Ivins," Solomon said. "While it took time to get all the agreements and boundaries settled, we all worked together and it has made the project much easier to complete."
He estimates the Gunlock project will be finished by the end of May at a cost of $3.8 million.
Completed in 1973, Gunlock Reservoir not only provides a popular recreation area for Washington County, but the irrigation companies the reservoir serves below the dam have also benefited with a regulated irrigation stream, according to Rod Levitt, Gunlock, who is the Santa Clara River water commissioner for the state of Utah.
These companies are: Santa Clara Irrigation Co., Bloomington Irrigation Co., St. George Irrigation Co., Seap Ditch Irrigation Co., Shivwit Indian Irrigation Co. and Ivins Irrigation Co.
Simultaneously, the Water and Power Department has a project on the south side of Pine Valley Mountain. As mountain springs there developed, it became evident that the steep drop of the springs down the mountain would enable the department to take advantage of the rapid fall of the water and build a 600-kilowatt hydroelectric plant.
"There was just such a plant built near this site in 1941," Solomon said. "It was torn down in the '60s, I believe. We decided to design and order a special turbine which could provide us with both power and water."
When the water leaves the Mountain Springs hydro plant, it is piped six miles to St. George and is used for culinary purposes on the east side of St. George. This project will be complete at the end of April, Solomon said.
St. George is also improving the Quail Creek water use system. This fall a project will be put out for bid, which will increase the daily amount of water going to St. George from 10 million gallons to 20 million gallons a day due to a special engineering design done for the city by Horrocks and Carollo Engineering firm.
The department is placing a new power line to provide additional kilovolts for St. George electric users. This new addition will come into the power system near the Red Cliffs Mall.
St. George City Power and Water staff member Dave Evans is also mapping via computer all the water systems that involve water usage for the city of St. George.
"The one thing I can say with a certainty," commented Solomon, "is that our staff works their heads off."