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Science Specialist Ed Yeates reporting
A new multi-million dollar water distribution system is in the works for the Salt Lake valley.
The plant will draw from unused water sources that normally flow into the Great Salt Lake.
And part of that system will also include a new plant that will no longer use chlorine to treat the water.
The new system has a lot of plus' including a sophisticated backup for all those living south and west of the city, should an existing treatment plant go down.
The system would offer a lot of things water users have not seen before in this valley.
Take Little Cottonwood Creek for example. In peak water years, a lot of this H20 gold flows unused in the Great Salt Lake.
But a pipeline would pull that water into the new treatment plant.
This is a what the facility would look like - built east of the freeway near the gravel pits at Point of the Mountain.
"We estimate that the new water supplies which will be available to come through this facility would supply nearly a quarter of a million people over the next 20 years," says John Carman with Salt Lake and Sandy Metropolitan Water District.
The primary source of water would come through a covered canal from the Provo River.
But at the new plant, the water would be treated not with chlorine, but with ozone and ultraviolet light. It will not only taste better, but...
"Ultraviolet disinfection is very good in terms of cryptosporidium and other chlorina resistant microbes that we're starting to see today," Carman says.
From the new plant, a pipeline could take water to or from the existing Little Cottonwood plant - and with connections with other water districts - could literally dispatch water anywhere in the valley wherever it's needed.
This is about the diameter of the new pipe. But instead of just concrete, it will be steel-lined for strength. At peak capacity, up to 215 million gallons of water per day could travel through this line.
The new plant would be built on bedrock away from the Wasatch Fault. And the new pipeline would bypass almost all of the dangerous earthquake liquefaction zones.
The Metropolitan District says the whole project would cost $325 million - all funded from issued bonds, according to Carman - with no additional burden on taxpayers.
