GIW Industries will provide eight pump and drive train systems for use in the construction of the Lake Mead Intake Tunnel No. 3. The USD 450 million tunnel project is necessary to protect the water supply of Las Vegas and surrounding municipalities. Scheduled for completion in 2012, the Lake Mead project first entails construction of a vertical shaft that is 600ft deep and 30ft in diameter. The shaft then opens to a man-made “cavern” where a tunnel-boring machine will be assembled for the purpose of boring a 24ft wide, 15,000ft long horizontal tunnel beneath Lake Mead. Vegas Tunnel Constructors, a joint venture of Impregilo and S.A. Healy Co., was contracted in March 2008 to oversee construction of the intake shaft and tunnel. Vegas Tunnel Constructors selected Georgia-based GIW Industries as a supplier to provide eight pump systems, seven of which will pump slurry through the tunnel’s closed-loop circuit. The eighth pump will be located in the processing plant at the shaft’s surface. Pumps, each with an assembled weight of 24,000lbs, will be strategically placed along the wall of the tunnel that, when complete, will be three miles in length. The seven GIW high pressure LSA36 pumps will be placed in series to remove the excavated material from the tunnel. Tunnel and shaft construction commenced in June 2008, and GIW’s pump installation is set to begin in April or May of 2010.