Grand Canyon Building $150 Million Water Pipeline
Grand Canyon hikers shouldn’t be surprised by dust, noise and detour signs. The park is replacing the run down 50-year-old pipeline that sends water to its hotels and restaurants.
Even though the Colorado River runs through the Grand Canyon, the park has no water rights to it.
Instead it has to pump water through a 16-mile-long pipeline from Roaring Springs just below the North Rim down the canyon, bypass the river and back up to the South Rim where most of the park’s hotels and restaurants sit.
Park officials said to replace the entire pipeline will cost as much as $150 million, making it the most expensive project in the entire national park system. That’s why they’re replacing it one segment at a time. A half mile of pipeline alone is $3 million.
The first quarter mile has already been replaced. For this phase the contractor had 121,500 pounds of pipe, three 5,000-gallon water storage tanks and one mini-excavator flown into the canyon.
