New pipeline project key to delivering CUP water

SPANISH FORK — It took 40 years and a lot of skilled work, but the Wasatch Front's allocation of Colorado River water now empties into the Spanish Fork River through a massive series of huge tunnels, siphons and pipelines.

The final piece — the sometimes-troubled, much-ballyhooed $150 million Upper Diamond Fork Project — was dedicated Thursday. It was hailed as a key link in the federal Central Utah Project, which can now deliver more than 100,000 acre-feet of water daily from the Strawberry Reservoir to cities along the Wasatch Front.

The Diamond Fork pipeline extension connects the upper pipeline to the Monks Hollow overflow structure, much of it through tunnels punched through the mountain and under the Diamond Fork Road — an effort one official called "beyond cutting edge."

"With the growth along the Wasatch Front this water is absolutely critical," said Utah Gov. Olene Walker.

In about three years another pipeline project in Spanish Fork Canyon will connect to the Diamond Fork pipeline and evenly divide 60,000 acre-feet of water daily between Utah and Salt Lake counties, said Lee Wimmer, construction manager.

The rest will fulfill contracts already in place.

"I've been following this for years," said Salem Mayor Randy Brailsford. "It's finally going to become a reality."

Brailsford drove much of the discussion to get CUP water to the southern parts of Utah County.

Don Christiansen, director of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, the organization that will operate the pipeline, is pleased the pipeline is now complete.

He says it comes at just the right time, given the drought, now in its sixth year.

More than 200 federal, state and local government officials and guests attended the ceremony on the banks of the now-placid Diamond Fork Creek.

Completion of the pipeline and tunnel water project returns Diamond Fork Creek and Sixth Water Creek to more natural states. For nearly 90 years summer irrigation water tunnelled to the canyon from the Strawberry Reservoir rushed down the Sixth Water and Diamond Fork creeks to the Spanish Fork River to water crops in Utah Valley, destroying the fishery and damaging the waterway.

The project was designed for maximum flexibility in water management to give the Wasatch Front the water it needed while allowing the restoration of the fishery along the creek, said Lucy Jordan, official biologist for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Fishing enthusiasts have already returned to the creek, which was closed during construction.

Completion of the project allows Utah to control its share of water from the Colorado River, said Bennett Raley, the U.S. Department of Interior's assistant secretary for water and science

The beginning of this and other projects to share Colorado River water started in 1922 with the Colorado River Compact, Raley said.

In 1956 the Colorado River Storage Act was passed, and the Central Utah Project started in 1964. The project stalled during the Carter administration but rebounded in the 1980s when Congress reauthorized the Central Utah Project.

---

E-mail: rodger@desnews.com