Water line from St. Loise to Denver

[jugglerbri]

Here on the front range of the Rockies we are going through a drought. In the local paper, someone suggested piping water from the East where it is abundant. I've been wondering how much this would cost, how much water would need to be pumped, and how large of a line would be needed. I've come up with this much:

A 16" line for 792 miles (St. Loise to Denver) at $120/LF is $500,000,000.00.

Design fee would be about $50,000,000.00.

Pumping 4,000 gal/min would cost $1,000,000/month.

Any ideas on how many pump stations would be required and a guess on how much they would cost?

I don't even have a clue how to estimate the access costs (easements, land purchase).

Anything else I'm missing?

Brian

 

One thing I think you are missing is who is going to pay to use this water? 4,000 gpm is a small amount and the cost per 1,000 gallon will be about 40 to 50 dollars compared to 2 to 5 dollars in todays market.

As for pump stations needed, you would have approximately 40,000 feet of headloss in the pipe line. Assume a high pressure pump at 350 psig so that we can use pipe that fits with your estimate of 120$ per foot. You will need to construct some 50 to 60 pump stations. Approximatel 50 to 60 thousand horsepower total will be needed to power all the pumps at a cost to operate of 4 million a month, in adition to your 1 million a month you calculated which I assume was for differential head between the two locations. These pump stations would cost around 1 million a piece turn key (design, land, legal, construction, utilities, permits). Now add O & M costs of say 500,000 to 1 mill a month and I think you can rap it up. Now consider this design and construction will take anywhere from 10 to 30 years to get all the permits and get it built.

It's pretty easy to see why people live around water sources and that water is the true limiting factor for life. We are just now seeing in the US that areas are reaching maximum sustainable density which is something we had to deal very little with in the past.

For you pipeline to be cost effective, you would need 500,000 to 1 million gpm and even then it might be too small a flow to justify the cost, I am only speculating.

 

[Bayou]

One more thing...who is going to give or even sell their water rights. The water of the Mississippi River is mostly claimed and most businesses or local farmers will probably not relinquish their water right permits for Denver.