The Columbus Upground Reservoir

The 843-acre R-2 Basin Reservoir in Columbus, Ohio is extraordinary in scale, both as a reservoir and particularly as a geosynthetically lined facility.

The Columbus Upground Reservoir (CUGR) is the culmination of more than 10 years of work by the City of Columbus, Ohio – Department of Public Utilities.

An upground reservoir is a man made water basin separate, or off-stream, from its water source. When stream flows are adequate, water will be pumped from the Scioto River and diverted to the Columbus Upground Reservoir, to be stored for future use. When needed, water will be released back into the river to flow by gravity to the city of Columbus’ water treatment plant.

The first of three CUGR reservoirs is the 843 acre R-2 basin. When completely filled it can contain more than 9 billion gallons of water! The water will be pumped from the Scioto River by 4 vertical turbine pumps, each capable of pumping 40 million gallons of water per day through the 20,000 foot long, 72 inch pipeline from the pump station to the reservoir. The reservoir is being lined with 37 million square feet of 40 mil polypropylene geomembrane liner fabricated and installed by EPI. A single panel can be seen in the aerial photo at the right.

EPI will fabricate and install 1,226 liner panels ranging in size from 100 x 250 ft. to 125 x 250 ft. EPI has already installed more than 12.5 million square feet. The pace of installation is currently at 9 panels per day, or about 280,000 sq. ft. deployed, welded, tested, and covered with geotextile.

After the liner is covered with 18 inches of soil, the liner is surveyed by Geo-Logic Associates with an extremely sophisticated electrical leak location system that can locate holes as small as a pencil. For more info call 800-OK-LINER.

As of late June, EPI had completed more than 34% of its work on the R-2 Basin. An initial electrical leak location survey revealed only two small holes (caused by stones) to patch. In addition to be an enormous liner installation, the project also represents a huge step in apply liner integrity survey and analysis technology.

This article was published as part of Environmental Protection, Inc.’s long-running Liner Letter. View the full archive and download a PDF copy of this article (Volume 12, Issue 1) at http://www.geomembrane.com/LinerLetter/index.html.