Creating tomorrow’s economic flush

Creating tomorrow’s economic flush
by J.T. Long

On a warm September morning, Rick Wood peers over a bridge at clear waters streaming through the Putah South Canal into the Waterman Water Treatment Plant and nods approvingly. “Very low turbidity,” the assistant director of public works announces.

Contractors for Kiewit Pacific Co., descendents of the same Peter Kiewit Sons’ Co. that built the dam in 1953, are on site today installing rebar as part of a $67 million expansion and modernization project.

Both Lake Berryessa water and Delta water are surface sources and therefore tend to be free of damaging chemicals such as perchlorate that can infiltrate groundwater sources. Fairfield’s two water treatment plants — Waterman and North Bay Regional Water Treatment Plant — focus on disinfection and pulling out particulates. Sticky microsand added to rough filtered water in new oversized sifters allows gravity to do its part, pulling sediment out of the water before it is ozonated and chlorinated. To make this process more efficient, Kiewit is upgrading and expanding the Waterman facility from its current 16 million gallons per day (mgd) to a capacity of 30 mgd. Construction will take 30 months because it is being done in stages to allow almost continuous operation of the facility. And while Anheuser-Busch insists that its water come exclusively from Lake Berryessa, for most of the rest of the service area water from the Delta and lake are mixed with almost identical results. Wood says, “If I tasted a glass of treated water from each source, I couldn’t tell the difference.” The redundancy gives the district flexibility and reliability — a very important asset to manufacturing site managers.

Combined with North Bay Regional Water Treatment Plant’s 27 mgd capacity and 55.1 million gallons of treated water storage capacity in nine reservoirs, Fairfield has enough water to serve the city’s 106,000 residents today along with the 136,000 people and related jobs and service uses expected by 2025. “We will have enough water for another Budweiser if it’s needed,” Wood says.

In addition to more efficient treatment streams and seismic upgrades, renovations include a research station where University of North Carolina students and SID employees will work on site to find better ways to treat this valuable source of economic development.