Integrated Pipeline Project, North Texas

The joint $2.3 billion project of the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) and Dallas Water Utilities (DWU) entails the construction of 149 miles of new pipeline and related infrastructure running from Lake Palestine in East Texas to Benbrook Lake in Tarrant County, with connections to the TRWD’s Richland-Chambers and Cedar Creek reservoirs in East Texas.

Oscar Renda Contracting (ORC) and Southland Contracting (SCI), both Southland Holdings Companies, have constructed portions of the massive project.

The Integrated Pipeline Sections 10 and 11 work performed by ORC consisted of the installation of 66,847 lf of 84-in welded steel water line by a combination of open-cut and tunneling methods.

The 15-1 Pipeline was divided into three sections, A, B and C. The ORC portion of the pipeline, section B, included approximately 25,479 lf of 108-in waterline and was installed by January 2015, approximately eight months ahead of sections A and C. The project consisted of 82,010 lf of 108-in waterline by a combination of open-cut and tunneling.

The IPL Section 17 Trinity River Tunnel is currently being constructed by SCI. The project, in Navarro County, is a Design-Build project with 4,400 lf of 188-in tunnel being bored with a 16-ft Robbins TBM in mixed faced ground. The tunnel is being constructed utilizing precast segmental liner, with a final finished liner of 108-in steel pipe. In addition to the tunnel construction, SCI has constructed a precast manufacturing facility close to the shaft site to cast and deliver the precast segments, controlling the quality and on-demand delivery of the segments.

The greater pipeline capacity will allow delivery of about 350 million more gallons of water per day to North Central Texas for the Tarrant and Dallas systems combined. For Fort Worth and much of the western side of the Metroplex, it means the volume of raw water that TRWD can deliver from its two biggest sources of water – Richland-Chambers and Cedar Creek reservoirs – will rise by 197 million gallons per day, a 52 percent increase in capacity.