Woodward Reservoir Pipe Repair

[rogman]

A great deal of Killington’s snow making water comes from Woodward Reservoir through an agreement with the Farm and Wilderness Foundation, a couple of miles south of the old Northeast Passage Lodge on Rte 100. A nominal volume of 10000 gallons/minute is piped along Rte 100 through a “2 foot” diameter pipe (actual internal diameter appears to be about 21.5”). It then snakes up through the woods and onto the Sundog trail, and down into the Bear Snowmaking pond. It’s a low pressure feed, built in 2000, and part of a myriad of deals engineered by Les Otten including land swaps (Parker’s Gore for the Village land, purchase of Pico, and a few other things). These were not separate deals; all depended on the others. The pipe does not run all the time, Killington just moves water as they need to.

For the most part this pipe is reasonably accessible for repair. However, when the Topridge development was built, the road up Sunrise was extended, and the Sundog trail was routed through a tunnel underneath the road, similar to the tunnels later built on Skyeburst and Snowden. Unfortunately, the already installed and buried aqueduct up Sundog didn’t go through the tunnel as built, it went under the road, skiers left. Not really a problem at the time. The same thing happened with the snow making pipe for Sundog as well.

So fast forward nearly 25 years and a leak develops in the inaccessible section under the road. Obviously it was significant enough that Killington believed they had to fix it as soon as possible. The method of fixing this inaccessible leak was to locate an accessible portion of the existing pipe below the Sundog tunnel, dig a trench from it up through the tunnel to the point on the other side where the pipe became accessible again, then install a new section of pipe in this trench, bypassing and abandoning the leaky section. I’d guess it totaled a distance of a couple of hundred feet. Obviously, once the existing pipe was cut into, pumping water from the Woodward was impossible until the repair was complete. This portion of the repair took several days and completed Friday afternoon (Dec 29), and conveniently occurred when temperatures were too warm for snow making anyway.

The full repair took much longer, I’m told they didn’t have sufficient pipe of that size in house when the leak was initially detected, so even beginning the repair was delayed. They continued to use the aqueduct during this time, it simply had reduced capacity and leaked. I do not know how much capacity was lost, and it’s possible it made no difference in their overall water availability.

The area of repair was a construction site with an extended open trench. It seemed safer to keep silent about it until work was completed, but I frequently took pictures to mark the progress.

Pix are sourced on the imgur server, not Kzone’s, so their size and quantity shouldn’t significantly affect the Kzone mods’ wallets.


Downslope side, existing pipe under the new pipe heading up through the tunnel. Note the full size shovel on the right.


View of downslope side from road.


Upslope side. They have yet found the pipe on this side. Trenching apparent in lower left.


Uphill side, they ran into some granite (IDK, I’m no geologist), and had to break it up to bury the new pipe.


Found the uphill side of the existing pipeline.


Uphill pipe cut. No more water from Woodward until the job is complete.


Welding in an elbow on the uphill side in the r*in.


Commencing backfill of the uphill side


Downhill side not yet cut.


Adding a slight turn to the downhill side. Pipe now cut on.


Downhill side now backfilled. I was told they’ve already pumped water from Woodward to test the pipe. Ready to go once the cold weather arrives.

[jimmywilson69]

Thanks for the detailed explanation and pictures.

Quite the project, but made the correct decision to reroute it in a more accessible location.

Ive always wondered where is the pump for this pipe. You can see the pipe a few places along 100 after you are on the Killington side of woodward reservoir.

[newpylong1]

Near the corner of Route 100 and 4. It's sent from Woodward to there and then boosted up Northeast Passage to the active section of Sunrise (shown here) then hard right down Bear Cub down over the bridge past the base of the old Fiddle chair into the Bear pond. That section needs to be moved for the Bear Redev. The leak should not have effected capacity as they can bump up withdrawal from the other 3 sources temporarily. There has been so much r*in the conservation flow rates are high on those.

[ski]

WOW !! Great report ! Really shows the massive scale of the pipe and the entire operation . .

[skiadikt]

wow great detective work and job documenting this. looks like a significant undertaking on the mtn's part. just shows some of the stuff that goes on behind the the scenes. btw luv the welder shots. cool with the tent set up over them. and yeah don't suspect the water was much missed during the repair. think we've had gotten more than enough lately.

in other construction news, the plumbing for the new water fountain in the k1 lodge is in place. if not already done, it's imminent.

[snoloco]

How much water are they allowed to draw from each of the 4 sources?

[newpylong1]

It's not a GPM thing it's a "conservation flow" thing. The amount of water going over the spillways or weirs needs to still flow x amount during withdrawal.

You can Google and peruse the extremely long and mostly boring permit documents that go into great detail about their water sources. Every time they make a withdrawal change ACT 250 requires they go through the whole rigamarole and show alternative analysis, etc. The latest was when they just moved the Ottaquechee (Gondola intake) and the other major ones were Woodward and the Interconnect permit.

[rogman]

I don’t know if they were ever water limited, although there was one time I suspected they might be. Something seemed off for a while though. The ponds provide reserve capacitance. It’s not like they have to run the Woodward line to make snow, but they usually do (I can hear it). The short weather windows we had meant that the ponds would have had enough time to refill between opportunities, simply by running the Woodward line longer. It is possible the leak affected Pico, since there may have been less water forwarded from the Basin as a result. All idle speculation and guesswork, I don’t know.

[woodcore]

Nice pictures!! Impressive repair but better yet some deep insight into the system workings, love this stuff.

[Big Bob]

I don’t know if they were ever water limited, although there was one time I suspected they might be. Something seemed off for a while though. The ponds provide reserve capacitance. It’s not like they have to run the Woodward line to make snow, but they usually do (I can hear it). The short weather windows we had meant that the ponds would have had enough time to refill between opportunities, simply by running the Woodward line longer. It is possible the leak affected Pico, since there may have been less water forwarded from the Basin as a result. All idle speculation and guesswork, I don’t know.

This could of been what was hampering snowmaking operations early season depending on how long it had been leaking. Plenty of posts wondering what was going on during snowmaking limited to just superstar before the race. A pipe of that diameter may of had a longer lead time to get, not sitting in a suppliers yard nearby. Timing of the milder weather helped with the instalation, r*in not so much. Now winter can begin in inerest!

[Captain Hafski]

FWIW - A bit of detective work on my own [though not as good as what Rogman provided - Thanx for that !].

Living on Rte 100 in W. Bridgewater, I drive over that pipe every day; it cuts right across my property [part of State Right of Way] on the West side of Rte 100. I owned the house when they put it in.

From Woodward Reservoir, heading north, the pipe is mostly on the West side of Rte 100. There has always been a drainage ditch parallel with the pipe to divert ground water North to the Ottaquechee River. Every now and then there is a culvert to take the water under and to the East side of Rte 100, where the main "ditch" is.

Irene 2011: Madden Brook, draining the East side of Killington and Shrewsbury Peaks, did not make it directly to the East side of Rte 100 via the large culvert just South of my house [if nothing else, culvert was blocked up by uprooted trees, etc.]. Much of the flow came across my [and my neighbors] properties causing a lot of damage. Regardless, as part of the recovery, not much was changed.

July 2023: Same sh*t happened on the Friday storm [same one caused the Rte 4 landslide and took out E. Mountain Road]. Somewhat different, the flow coming down Madden Brook decided to cut left [North] before it got to Rte 100 and missed the culvert by 50 yards or so. For me and at least my next door neighbor that some of you know, it was the same damage to our properties, more or less. This time, the State was much more proactive in thinking about repair options to mitigate /minimize future recurrence. As part of this they cut open Rte 100 and replaced the original culvert with a temporary bridge effectively now a box culvert. This is the bridge that "rattles and rumbles" when some of you cross it coming up to K just before my house. The state also took excavators up Madden Brook and rebuilt parts of it so it wouldn't turn left like it did this time. Thirdly, if it does turn left, they added another large culvert under Rte 100 which was not too hard to do as the July storm had already took out Rte 100 there?

What's this have to do with the snowmaking pipe you wonder. Not much, but a good lead in I thought. As the state was looking at how to repair from the July event(s), they widened, and dug the West side ditch much deeper, to help future flooding flow get North to the Ottaquechee River [Rte 4]. As I was working with the State and contractors over the summer, I heard that Killington was repeatedly trying to make sure the repairs did not jeapordize this pipe ! Then, late in the game K was still worried and hired a contractor to take ground penetrating radar measurements of where the new ditch was relative to the pipe. If nothing else, I gotta believe they were worried about it being real close to the ditch and possibly freezing up in the winter.

I don't have closure on this re: is it OK, etc., but just putting it out there.

[spanky]

Thanks for sharing rogman. Great pics and descriptions. Viewing on a phone doesn't do the photos any justice. That's some pipe!