Black & Veatch Providing Preliminary Design of a Major Potable Water Conveyance System in Southern Nevada

Black & Veatch announces it has been selected by the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) to perform preliminary and final design services for the Horizon Lateral, a $1.6-billion water conveyance system that will strengthen water delivery service for its customers.

The system is expected to include approximately 27 miles of pipeline between 72 and 120 inches in diameter and approximately seven miles of tunneling through hard rock and soft ground. There also will be two large-scale pumping stations, multiple rate-of-flow control facilities, interconnections with existing transmission laterals, and new reservoir storage with a total capacity of 40 million to 100 million gallons.

As a wholesaler comprised of seven local water and wastewater agencies, SNWA provides treatment and delivery services and manages long-term water resources for more than 2.3 million residents in southern Nevada. The Horizon Lateral is the largest project proposed in SNWA’s 2020 Major Construction and Capital Plan. It will provide system redundancy and ensure continued, reliable service to nearly one million existing customers in the city of Henderson and southern region of the Las Vegas Valley.

The selection comes on the heels of a comprehensive route study and feasibility evaluation recently completed by Black & Veatch. Through participatory, multi-stakeholder workshops and risk-based analyses, the evaluation helped SNWA filter more than 92,000 potential pipeline segments and multiple hydraulic configurations to reach consensus on a preferred alignment for the Horizon Lateral system.

“Constructing infrastructure of this magnitude in a growing, highly urbanized area like the Las Vegas Valley is extremely challenging,” said Jim Morley, project manager in Black & Veatch’s water business. “We are also aware of the need to protect surrounding sensitive environmental habitats and conserved lands.”

Morley noted that the design team is advancing the preferred alignment and an alternative alignment through preliminary design until such time as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Record of Decision (ROD) is complete. Services provided for both alignments include cost-risk analysis, hydraulic-optimization, environmental assessments, and construction packaging and delivery assessment.

The planned in-service completion date for the project is around 2030.

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