Permitting and Regulatory Approvals - Design-Build for Water and Wastewater Projects - page 275

Project: Accelerated Wells Installation
Owner: Town of Castle Rock, Colorado
Design-Build (DB) Entity: HDR Constructors Inc.
Completion Date: July 2007
Description of Project
The Town of Castle Rock, Colo. has historically been dependent on deep aqui-
fer groundwater as its primary drinking water supply source. The Town owns and
operates an extensive raw water delivery system composed of deep aquifer (Denver
Basin), well houses, piping, and metering systems.
Most of the Town's wells are drilled to depths ranging from 1,200 to 2,000 ft
below ground surface and are equipped with vertical turbine submersible pumps
capable of delivering water all the way to the respective storage or water treatment
faci lity.
Between 2000 and 2006, the Town of Castle Rock's population service area
doubled, taxing available supplies and necessitating expansion of the water supply
system. The Town's supply was further impacted by the drought of 2002 and 2003.
During this period of growth and drought, the Town experienced excessive draw-
down within the deep-aquifer well system, with water surface elevations at the well
heads dropping as much as 30 ft each year.
As water surface draw-down occurred, individual well yields declined, which
forced the Town to redrill or reequip wells on an accelerated time line. By the sum-
mer of 2006, the Town of Castle Rocks' engineering staff recognized that additional
wells were required to meet projected 2007 summer demands.
The Town of Castle Rock officials identified properties for deep-aquifer well
development and transmission to the Town's newly constructed Ray Waterman Water
Treatment Facility. Faced with a project completion time line of just eight months,
the Town partnered with HDR Constructors Inc. (HDR) on a progressive design-
build delivery approach to complete the project. The $6 million project included
two well development sites, four new wells, two new well houses, and approximately
10,000 lin ft of new raw water pipeline.
As with any project, the Accelerated Wells Installation came with its own set of
challenges, including challenges related to permitting and easements, such as:
• Establishing a permit and easement with the Colorado Department of
Transportation (CDOT) to allow jack and bore under a busy state highway.
This included working hand-in-hand with CDOT and local utility compa-
nies to locate and isolate the crossing area to allow work to be accomplished.
• Expediting the negotiation of easements for the location of the pipeline
and well discharge, which involved working with several land owners and
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