Thornton water line wet utility

Over a year and a half ago IHC Scott was successful in prequalifying and winning the bid for the first segment of the Thornton Water Project. The project consisted of 36,000 linear feet of 42” cement mortar-lined pipe, 9 trenchless installations crossing roadways, canals, rivers, railroads, associated vaults, valves, and appurtenances. The project was broken into 2 segments each approximately 18,000 LF long, one in Johnstown and one in Windsor Colorado. There were numerous challenging elements of work including wet conditions, deep secant shaft excavations, self-performed carrier pipe tunnel installations, utility crossings, and narrow construction easements that the crews contend- ed with.

Over 750 welded joints and thousands of bolts were recently put to the test when the lines were pressure tested end to end at over 350 PSI. The test went off without a hitch holding pressure for 2 hours with less than one PSI of drop. This was a huge accomplishment for the crews that put in countless long days and weekends accumulating over 86,000 man-hours.

The project achieved substantial completion on September 6th, 2021, and is nearing final completion as the crews diligently work through the punch lists items and complete the final reclamation. We expect to have the project wrapped up by mid-October.

We would like to express our appreciation for all the team members that were a part of the project many of which spent countless days completely soaked working in the trench without any hesitation to do what needed to be done and doing so with the utmost quality and safety in mind. We also appreciate the contributions from the trucking, equipment, and safety departments for their support in completing this challenging project.

With a total length of over 74 miles and at least 5 more phases connecting to a reservoir north of Fort Collins all the way to Thornton, we look forward to bidding on these future phases of the Thornton Water Project and are thankful and proud to have the first one behind us! We have full confidence in our crew’s ability and are eager to put those skills to work on more welded steel pipe!