Implementation and use of SCADA for the southern water supply project
Date
2007-06
Authors
Brouwer, Carl, author
U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, publisher
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
The Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (NCWCD) provides approximately 210,000 acre-ft of raw water to much of Northeastern Colorado via the United States Bureau of Reclamation Colorado - Big Thompson Project (CBT). Deliveries through C-BT began in the 1950's and were predominately for irrigation. However, over time as the Colorado front range has developed, the portion of water delivered to the municipal and industrial (M&I) sector has increased substantially. As this shift from agricultural deliveries to M&I has occurred, pipelines have been added by NCWCD to the original canal system to provide for more flexible and reliable year-round deliveries. In the mid-1990's, NCWCD began the construction of the Southern Water Supply Project (SWSP). The SWSP consists of 110 miles of pipeline connecting numerous municipal water providers in the southern and eastern portions of NCWCD to the St. Vrain Canal at Carter Lake Reservoir. In addition to the pipelines, three booster pump stations have been added to the system to increase the system delivery capacity. In total, the SWSP has the delivery capability of 110 cubic feet per second. The implementation of the SWSP necessitated the installation of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system throughout the new system. The delivery system contains seven flow control structures, three pump stations, and several intermediate valve and metering structures along with the operation of the Carter Lake Reservoir outlet works. This highly reliable system utilizes a distributed control system. Local control functions such as delivery control are made via programmable logic controllers (PLCs) at each individual site. These sites communicate via radio system to NCWCD where overall system control and water orders are made. This system acts to primarily make desired water deliveries. However, fail-safe features area also integrated to provide integrity to the pipeline in the event of system outages or pipeline failure. This paper will provide information on the planning and implementation of the SCADA system as well as lessons that have been learned through both the implementation and continued operation of the system.
Description
Presented at SCADA and related technologies for irrigation district modernization, II: a USCID water management conference held on June 6-9, 2007 in Denver, Colorado.