The Week of May 14 to May 21st is national
Infrastructure Week! This is the week where public agencies across the nation
highlight the importance of our nation’s infrastructure, and the need to
maintain it.
At the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, our
ratepayers had the foresight more than 10 years ago to allow us to pass the
$4.8 billion Water System Improvement Program (WSIP). The program has 87
projects, spanning seven counties, to repair, replace, and seismically upgrade
aging portions of the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System. To date the program
is more than 90% complete.
A tremendous amount of work was done in the Sunol Valley to
ensure a seismically reliable water supply for our Bay Area customers. The
Calaveras Fault runs right through the Sunol Valley. The Calaveras Dam
Replacement Project is the largest WSIP Project in construction, but there have
been many others. Here are the highlights:
Alameda Siphon #4. A high tech pipeline crossing of
the Calaveras Fault designed to survive an earthquake. Completed 2013.
New Irvington Tunnel. A new seismically designed tunnel to
connect the new Siphon with new pipelines in Fremont. Tunnel brought into
service in 2015.
Upgrades to our Sunol Valley Water Treatment Plant to enable
the plant to provide minimum demand to all of our 2.7 million customers on its
own for up to 60 days. Completed 2015.
A complete new Bay Division Pipeline #5 to connect the New
Irvington Tunnel to a new Bay Tunnel and the Peninsula. Completed 2016.
We've been posting videos on Facebook all week to highlight the SFPUC's efforts to upgrade your infrastructure. And at Twitter: #TimetoBuild. See the Facebook posts here.
See you around the Valley!
