Department | Public Works |
Council District | County |
Budget | $198,033,877 |
Funding Source | General Fund |
Estimated Start Date | January 2016 |
Estimated Completion Date | September 2018 |
Project Manager | Randy Hoffman, CH2M |
The Southeast Surface Water Treatment Facility (SESWTF) will be a new water treatment facility to treat surface (river) water to drinking water standards and enable diversification of the City’s water supply. The facility will be fed with surface water from the Kings River through a newly constructed thirteen mile long Kings River Pipeline and will have initial and ultimate treatment capacities of 54 million gallons per day (mgd) and 80 mgd, respectively. This facility will provide an additional 72,000 acre-feet per year of treated (potable) water for use by residential and commercial customers throughout the City. Implementation of this and other ongoing major projects will reduce reliance on groundwater and alleviate groundwater depletion.
For decades, the City of Fresno relied on groundwater as its main supply. While the City of Fresno receives a small portion of surface water from the San Joaquin River, Fresnans rely on groundwater for nearly 90 percent of its water. The SESWTF will allow us to maximize use of available surface water in normal years, and reduce our dependence on groundwater resources, which are rapidly depleting. Treated surface water from the SESWTF will provide an additional 72,000 acre-feet per year of treated water to the City’s water supply and will alleviate groundwater depletion.
Construction Update
Construction of the Southeast Surface Water Treatment Facility, the “backbone” of Recharge Fresno, is making good progress and remains on schedule to begin delivering potable water to the City in late June 2018. The major concrete water-holding structures are nearly complete and most are undergoing thorough leakage testing; off-site utility and road improvements are complete with Fowler, Armstrong, and Olive avenues completely open to traffic; exposed piping, ductwork, and electrical conduits are approximately 60% complete; installation of large mechanical and electrical equipment is underway; and architectural work on support buildings is ongoing. Most heavy construction will be complete by January 2018, and extensive calibration and functional testing of all equipment, systems, and treatment processes will begin. The completion of the KRP and RTMs pipelines is coordinated to support the plant’s schedule. The construction team has recorded more than 300,000 hours of labor without “lost-time” accidents.