Happy Infrastructure Week 2018

The Week of May 14 to May 21^st 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!