When a project is set in motion at ISCO – the primary focus on the journey to the solution is the customer.

That doesn’t change.

Like a job east of Pueblo, Colorado that began in July 2023, conveying water through DR 11 and DR 13.5 36-inch HDPE pipe.

Standard HDPE, butt fusion performed on a McElroy TracStar iSeries machine and placed in a nine-foot deep trench.

Seems ordinary.

Simple.

Maybe boring, right?

But there is more to the story on a rare occasion.

In this case there is A LOT more to the story.

As the Broadway hit Hamilton notes:

“History has its Eyes on You.”

Allow me to explain.

On August 16, 1962 the United States Congress and President John F. Kennedy authorized the Fryingpan-Arkansas (Fry-Ark) Project.

Yep. 1962.

Named for two rivers in the southern part of the state of Colorado, the Fry-Ark was developed to divert, store and deliver water from the West Slope of the state over the Continental Divide to the drier East Slope – and more specifically the southeastern plains. Power, irrigation, municipal and industrial water, flood control and recreation fish and wildlife were the intended benefits.

The actual genesis of the project dates back to the Dust Bowl, with initial studies by the US Bureau of Reclamation in 1936 that were in response to a catastrophic flood of the Arkansas River in 1921.

There was a concerted effort to lobby the feds to help out, and at one-point supporters of the project attempted to gain momentum by marching burros down the streets of cities in the Arkansas Valley, selling gold frying pans to raise funds for the project campaign.

And it worked.

The initial steps in the Fry-Ark construction began in 1964 and concluded in 1990.

The massive project includes five dams and reservoirs.

Three hydroelectric plants – including a federal facility.

And 87 miles of tunnels and conduits.

Talk about having a vision. It completely changed the landscape of the southern portion of the state of Colorado.

One of the final segments of this gargantuan undertaking is the Arkansas Valley Conduit (AVC).

The AVC will pull water from Pueblo Reservoir, treat and deliver it to a trunk line that will travel about 130 miles, supplying water to 39 systems serving 50,000 people in Bent, Crowley, Kiowa, Otero, Prowers, and Pueblo counties.

Currently some groundwater supplies in these areas contain naturally occurring radionuclides like radium and uranium. The costs of reverse-osmosis, ion exchange, filtration, or bottled water to combat this is out of the question, so other manners of water security are of the utmost importance.

You may have noticed that we talk about the AVC in future tense, so you naturally ask:

“If the primary purpose of the Fry-Ark project was to alleviate water insecurity for the southeastern plains, why has this final step taken 61 years to complete?”

Good question.

When the act was signed in 1962 by President Kennedy the construction of the AVC was authorized, but it was never constructed because the communities were required to cover 100 percent of the costs.

This isn’t exactly like raising money for new foul poles at the municipal softball field.

In 2009 Public Law 111-11 was signed by President Barack Obama and provided 65 percent federal funding for the AVC.

The federal funding for the AVC has now climbed to $221 million since 2020, with approximately $30 million already spent on the project.

An additional $130 million has been pushed into the middle of the table on the shoulders of $120 million from the state of Colorado, and just shy of $10 million out of the pockets of the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, participating counties and the American Rescue Program Act (ARPA).

Thankfully to this point the burros and frying pans have not been broken out again.

And that brings us back to the job east of Pueblo, Colorado that began in July of 2023.

If there is any consolation in the delay, it is the benefit of technology shifting the pipe from steel to the leak-proof, flexible, corrosion-resistant, durable and 100-year solution that is HDPE.

The 36-inch HDPE pipe laying in an ordinary trench along U.S. 50 in Pueblo County.

The first six miles of the 130-mile AVC.

Sixty-one years in the making.

Over 100-years after the Flood of ’21.

Maybe German businessman Eckhard Pfeiffer said it best:

“Today is either the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning. Today we are making history.”

---

Click here for a video of John F. Kennedy’s speech in Pueblo on August 17, 1962.

Check back in to “A Historic Journey to Secure Water in the Arkansas Valley Conduit” for updates on the progress of the AVC project and ISCO’s role in this historic event.