Metropolitan Water District Project

Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake & Sandy Construction Projects Underway

Water facilities will provide capacity to meet water demand for Salt Lake City and Sandy City through the year 2025.

July 14, 2005

Salt Lake City Council Member Carlton Christensen and members of the Public Utilities Advisory Committee tour Metro construction projects.

Work is proceeding with the construction of major water facilities that will provide Salt Lake City and Sandy City a firm water supply through the year 2025. The Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake & Sandy (“Metro”) has awarded contracts for over $200 million to construct the Point of the Mountain Water Treatment Plant (“POMWTP”), Point of the Mountain Aqueduct (“POMA”) and capacity improvements to the district’s Little Cottonwood Water Treatment Plant (“LCWTP”).

Located at approximately 150000 South 255 West in Draper City, site work for POMWTP began during June 2003 and was completed in the spring of 2004. In the fall of 2004 Clyde-Ellsworth was awarded the contract to construct the water treatment plant. The project is scheduled for completion in 2007.

The 70 million gallons per day treatment facility is a conventional treatment process with coagulation, sedimentation and filtration. Additional treatment processes include ozone and ultra violet disinfection. Included in the project are finished water pumping plant and reservoir facilities.

The 12-mile long, 60-inch diameter POMA will convey Provo River water from the POMWTP to Salt Lake City and Sandy municipal water systems for distribution to their customers. The aqueduct alignment travels through Draper City and Sandy City terminating at the Metro LCWTP. As part of the project, a pumping plant and pipeline will convey Provo River water from the Provo Reservoir Canal located in Utah County to the POMWTP. The general contractor is W. W. Clyde.

Metro officials tout the project as the most significant undertaking in the past 50 years. It will provide additional capacity, provide redundancy and establish a critical link between the valley’s major water distribution systems, including facilities owned and operated by the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District.

View of construction of the Point of the Mountain Water Treatment plant located in Draper, Utah.

Originally built in 1960, the LCWTP capacity is being expanded from 110 million gallons per day to 143. The expansion project includes the reconstruction of the Little Cottonwood creek intake structure to increase the ability to capture more water flowing in the creek. Treatment improvements include new grit and screening facilities, flocculation basins and pre-ozoneation as the primary disinfection process. Construction is scheduled for completion late in 2005.