By Lara Updike
The water pipeline perched on Provo Canyon''s rocky cliffs is moving to a more secure location: underground.
'Burying it gives it longer life because it is covered and protected,' Clark Prothero told the Associated Press. Prothero is the project manager for W.W. Clyde, the Springville company contracted for the $35 million project.
'Right now they have people, like hunters, that shoot holes in it and the sun beating down on it all the time, which is hard on it,' he said.
The pipeline was shut off Monday in preparation for its dismantling and replacement. It will be turned on next April.
Don Christiansen, general manager of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District said the existing pipeline is 'quite old and a little bit unreliable.'
'It takes a lot of repairing to keep it in operation,' he said. 'If you had an earthquake up there, that green pipeline would come off the mountainside with just a little bit of shaking. It needs to be modernized and built in a way that will withstand earth movement.'
W.W. Clyde will work through this winter to replace about 6,000 feet of piping, said David Hales, executive vice president of W.W. Clyde.
Using acetylene welding torches, a crew will cut the 8-foot wide, half-inch thick pipe into 49-foot sections, which will be lifted off the mountain by crane and trucked away for recycling.
'It''s a difficult task in the winter with the cold temperatures and the possibility of snowfall,' Hales said. 'You''re working up there on a narrow bench.'
Provo residents should not feel the effects of the pipeline''s replacement in higher water prices, said Chris Finlinson, governmental affairs director for the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. Only a small amount of the pipeline''s water is sold to the city of Provo during the summer, she said.
Most of the water, which originates in the Upper Provo River, is carried from Deer Creek Reservoir to Salt Lake County. Even for Salt Lake County residents, the price of water is guaranteed by long-term contracts that will not be altered even after they expire and are renewed, Finlinson said.
The project''s only direct effect on Utah residents will be the disappearance of the 'green snake,' the 50-year-old eyesore visible from Canyon Road, Finlinson said.
Prothero said the new pipeline will be covered by a road.
'The slopes will be revegetated so it will look more like a natural hill,' he said.
One exception is a 15,000-foot section of piping near the highway''s Squaw Peak turnoff, Hale said. He said it will remain above ground because it is in a slide zone. Painted an earth tone, it will be less conspicuous than the 'green snake,' he said.
W.W. Clyde began the project in 2001 and should finish in 2004. Prothero said the new pipeline should last 75 years.