KSB Group Supplies Pumps for Lake Mead Tunnel
GIW Industries, a KSB Group subsidiary based in Grovetown, Georgia, will provide eight heavy-duty slurry pumps for the construction of Lake Mead Intake Tunnel No. 3.
GIW Industries, a KSB Group subsidiary, will provide eight heavy-duty slurry pumps for the construction of Lake Mead Intake Tunnel No. 3 (KSB Aktiengesellschaft, Frankenthal).
The $ 450 million tunnel project is scheduled to be completed in 2012. This new water intake tunnel is necessary to ensure the water supply of Las Vegas and surrounding municipalities.
Each of the eight LSA36 high-pressure pumps weighs nearly 11 tons. Three of the pumps will be used to transport cleaned slurry, acting as a lubricant, to the giant cutter head of a tunnel-boring machine.
Another four pumps will pump loose rock and used slurry back to a processing plant. The eighth pump which will be located in this plant will circulate the fluid in the slurry processing cycle.
Installation of the GIW pumps is set to begin in May 2010. The KSB Group was able to secure this contract primarily because the pumps are manufactured in the US and regarded as being extremely robust.
90 percent of Las Vegas’ water supply comes from the Colorado River at the Lake Mead reservoir created by the Hoover Dam. The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) operates two water intakes in Lake Mead located approximately 30 kilometres east of Las Vegas.
Repeat drought periods in recent years have caused the lake level to severely decrease which threatens the operability of the current water intakes. As the decline is expected to continue, a third intake is needed to ensure the existing water intake capacity and prevent depletion of the area’s future water supply.
Source: KSB SE & Co. KGaA
