Six Miles of Smarter Water for Phoenix’s Golf Courses
Irrigating three golf courses with potable water is an expensive way to keep the greens green. Our firm provided engineering and construction management services for a $10 million water infrastructure project in Phoenix that changed that equation. The project centered on a 2,500 GPM raw water pump station supplying irrigation water from the Arizona Canal to Cave Creek Golf Course, Lookout Mountain Golf Course, and Moon Valley Country Club via a six-mile raw water transmission main. The transition from potable to raw water frees up drinking water resources for the residents and businesses that need them while reducing irrigation costs for the courses. In a city where every drop carries weight, that reallocation matters.
The pipeline was installed along Thunderbird Road from 19th Avenue to 7th Street, a heavily trafficked collector street with a high density of existing wet and dry utilities running beneath it. The route also passed through the city’s Rose Mofford Park and Greenbelt, a section that demanded close collaboration between the city and contractor to maintain a safe working environment for crews and the public while keeping park access uninterrupted throughout construction.
Multiple Agencies, One Pipeline, Zero Disruptions to Service
The project required extensive coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Flood Control District, Salt River Project, and multiple City of Phoenix departments including Water, Parks, and Right-of-Way. Navigating that many stakeholders across a six-mile corridor through urban parkland and congested utility corridors is a project management challenge as much as an engineering one.
Delivered through Design-Bid-Build, our services spanned the entire project lifecycle: bidding, contract execution, weekly progress meetings, change order management, value engineering, and financial oversight. As engineer of record, we managed submittal reviews, RFI responses, and field directives. The project concluded with contractor walk-throughs, final acceptance letters, and comprehensive closeout. For Phoenix’s broader water conservation strategy, this pipeline is a quiet but meaningful step toward using the right water for the right purpose.
