WALNUT CREEK, CA, April 17, 2008 -- Black & Veatch, a leading global engineering, consulting and construction company, announced today that the Paso Robles Water Treatment Plant Project is entering the final design phase. Design of the major capital project will continue through this summer with construction bidding scheduled for November 2008.
El Paso de Robles, or "Pass of the Oaks," is a community of 29,500 situated midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Population growth has placed high demands on the city's existing water supply, which comes from groundwater production. As a result, the city became a project stakeholder in the Nacimiento Water Project (NWP), which is currently under construction by the San Luis Obispo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District.
The NWP, also designed by Black & Veatch, is a regional water supply system that will convey raw water from Lake Nacimiento to communities in San Luis Obispo County, including El Paso de Robles. The city will construct a water treatment plant (WTP) to treat surface water received from Lake Nacimiento. The WTP will provide additional treated water to the city's distribution system west and east zones.
The WTP will feature membrane filtration and pretreatment with ozonation and dissolved air flotation for advanced treatment of the new water supply. Ozonation will provide taste and odor control as well as primary disinfection. During the next few months, the city will pre-select the type of membrane filtration equipment to be purchased.
"Black & Veatch is a leader in the application of membrane filtration technology in California, and sustainable design of membrane applications is always an important consideration," said Dan McCarthy, President and CEO of Black & Veatch's global water business. "The project team has worked closely with the California Department of Public Health to identify multibarrier treatment technology that will produce high-quality drinking water from a recreational-use reservoir for protection of public health."
In 2007, Black & Veatch was selected to perform preliminary and final design of the WTP project, which is scheduled to begin operation by 2010. The facility is being designed for an initial capacity of 6 million gallons per day (mgd), expandable to 12 mgd.
To solicit input from contractors and help ready the city's bid documents for advertisement, the city and Black & Veatch will conduct a Contractor Outreach Program. The program will include a series of workshops for contractors, subcontractors and suppliers interested in bidding for the construction of the project. The workshops will be conducted in Paso Robles for local participants and simultaneously broadcast live on the Internet for out-of-area participants.
"We will be working closely with the contracting community as the design of the project moves forward, to generate bidder interest and learn about contractor concerns that might affect the bid outcome," said Doug Monn, El Paso de Robles Public Works Director. "We intend to make this a win-win outcome for the city and the contractors."
Black & Veatch is a leading global engineering, consulting and construction company specializing in infrastructure development in energy, water, telecommunications, management consulting, federal and environmental markets.
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