One of project's first major components—building a new conduit through Pueblo Dam—started in summer 2011 and is on track to be finished in June 2012, according to the project's general contractor, Pueblo West-based heavy civil contractor ASI Constructors Inc. Water will be pumped from Pueblo through the conduit to the municipal water system in Colorado Springs.

"We've got $50 million of work in several contracts so far," says John Bowen, ASI president.

Among ASI's challenges on the SDS was an 80-ft-deep excavation in the Arkansas River. "We got to do it in one of the highest run-off periods of the last 10 or 20 years," says Bowen. "Building dams has taught us how to do that, but it's never an easy task."

Much of the pipe being made for the SDS must be able to handle significant pressure. "There are high pressures because of right-of-way," says Neal Kelemen, Midwest sales representative in the Denver office of Northwest Pipe Co., the pipe supplier to the project. "You have to lift the water about 1,000 feet."

Northwest Pipe, Vancouver, Wash., has four major pipe contracts for the SDS so far to produce 21 miles of pipe in 50-ft lengths, built to American Water Works Association standards. The company is using weld-after-backfill installation because "it greatly increases a contractor's ability to lay pipe," says Rich Mielke, the company's director of engineering. "That's part of the value brought forward in an engineered project."

SDS Phase 1 Facts

• Scope: The SDS is a regional water delivery system that will bring water from the Arkansas River to users in Colorado Springs, Fountain, Security and Pueblo West

• Components: Connection to Pueblo dam, a 62-mile underground pipeline, water treatment plant, three pump stations

• Cost: Roughly $1 billion (phased project)

• Average/peak employment: 380/800 workers

• Construction start: 2010

• Scheduled start of water delivery: 2016

Source: Colorado Springs Utilities