In a record-low snowpack year, the Vita H2O Project is building a 27-mile HDPE pipeline from the Upper Laramie Aquifer to deliver drought-proof, reusable water to Northern Colorado communities, with ISCO as the key pipe supply partner.

When communities in Northern Colorado look at their water future, they see a region heavily dependent on CBT surface water, mountain snowpack and Colorado River diversions, that has been growing more expensive and less reliable every year. In the worst snowpack season on record, Brent Waller, President of FrontRange H2O visited Louisville, Kentucky, to tour ISCO’s facilities and deepen a partnership that both companies believe will help reshape how the region thinks about water supply.

The Vita H2O Project is a groundwater-based water supply and Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) system drawing from the Upper Laramie Aquifer, a non-tributary resource on the Colorado side that has never been utilized. The backbone of the system is a 27-mile large-diameter HDPE pipeline, with ISCO serving as the key supplier for pipe and related materials.

What is conjunctive use, and why does it matter for Colorado water security?

The Vita H2O Project is not designed to replace existing surface water supplies, it’s designed to work alongside them. FrontRange H2O calls this approach conjunctive use: combining surface water (tributary supply) with groundwater (non-tributary supply) to give municipalities and water districts far more flexibility, especially during drought years..

“This is a firming tool for systems. Conjunctive use is very key to the Vita project. Conjunctive use meaning surface supply, tributary supply, in combination with, conjunctively with, this groundwater supply.”

The Upper Laramie Aquifer holds roughly 8 million acre-feet on the Colorado side alone. Because it is non-tributary, Colorado law allows water drawn from it to be reused to extinction, meaning municipalities can treat and reuse every molecule delivered through the Vita pipeline across multiple cycles, dramatically extending the effective yield of each acre-foot.

Why HDPE pipe was chosen for a 27-mile water conveyance pipeline

Brent Waller’s team evaluated material options for a 42-inch, large-diameter, thick-walled pipeline that would need to perform reliably for 100 years or more underground. HDPE was the clear selection. Waller has been specifying HDPE for 17 years, going back to his work in the disposal well industry, and has fused pipe himself in the field.

“What I knew back then and what we know today is the flexibility, not just literally the flexibility, but the flexibility of the product, how you can do so many things with it. I just think it’s a fantastic product.”

For a long-run buried pipeline system, HDPE’s leak-free heat-fused joints eliminate the corrosion and seepage failures common in aging concrete and steel infrastructure. Its flexibility accommodates ground movement. And its installation speed, critical for a project on a defined construction timeline, is an advantage HDPE consistently delivers when the right team is in place.

The pipeline is also being designed to be bidirectional, enabling Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR): reversing flow during surplus periods to recharge the Upper Laramie Aquifer, then recovering that stored water when demand is high. This closed-loop capability, combined with the reuse-to-extinction advantage of non-tributary water, makes Vita H2O’s modeled supply horizon stretch into centuries.

HDPE’s 100-year service life and why it matched the Vita H2O Project’s structure

For FrontRange H2O, HDPE’s documented 100-plus year service life wasn’t just a performance specification, it was a requirement. The company’s offtake and operating agreements with water districts run 100-year terms. Understanding that HDPE actually delivers on that lifespan was a pivotal moment in securing project financing.

“Our offtake agreements and our operating agreements, they’re 100 years as well. So we have 100-year terms. There’s 100 years all over this thing.”

How ISCO added value beyond HDPE pipe supply

ISCO was selected as the key supply partner for all pipe and pipeline-related materials on the Vita H2O Project. But as Brent describes it, the relationship immediately moved beyond procurement. From the first meeting, ISCO’s team brought engineering ideas that pushed FrontRange H2O’s own team to think differently, including a DR rating optimization that produced meaningful economic savings across the full pipeline.

“You guys came in and said, ‘No, no, let’s look at this. We don’t have to do it all in one size, one DR rating.’ And boom, it was a real economic shift. Every dollar counts when we’re trying to provide a drinking water product to the community.”

During the Louisville facility tour, Waller identified new HDPE approaches for his team’s wellhead configurations, ideas they hadn’t previously considered, that will now be incorporated into the project’s design across multiple well sites. That kind of hands-on, collaborative problem-solving reflects the kind of partnership that a project of this complexity demands.

The economics of water in Colorado and how HDPE infrastructure helps flatten the curve

Water rates in Colorado have risen sharply for years. CBT surface water, the region’s primary supply, has recently reached as high as $75,000 per acre-foot per year. The Vita H2O Project is designed, in part, to introduce a new, economical source that gives municipalities and utility districts a tool to slow that rate escalation for their end users.

“We believe in that region, it is all hands on deck. We support all kinds of water projects. We want to see the solution continue to come to the table, but it has to be done economically. It should be driven by the idea of trying to flatten that curve.”

The Vita H2O Project is currently in Phase 1. ISCO will continue to document the project’s progress, from design and supply through construction, commissioning, and beyond, as this long-term partnership develops.

Frequently asked questions about the Vita H2O Project and HDPE pipeline