Water Recycling Plant Expansion

Situation: Large green spaces in Dublin, San Ramon, and Pleasanton soaked up a record 10.1 million gallons of recycled water on a single sweltering day in July 2017. With more customers connecting to the recycled water distribution system all the time, peak demand on hot summer days is expected to nearly double by 2020.

Solution: An $18 million improvement project is underway that will boost water recycling capacity from 9.7 million to 16.2 million gallons per day. Construction at the Jeffrey G. Hansen Water Recycling Plant began in January 2017 and will be completed in 2018.

Video: Click the image to watch a flyover of construction in progress at the Jeffrey G. Hansen Water Recycling Plant in October 2017. Without interrupting recycled water production, workers are building a pretreatment system that will boost water recycling capacity.

Water Recycling is Resource Recovery

The water recycling process applies tertiary treatment and ultraviolet disinfection to secondary effluent (wastewater that has undergone primary and secondary treatment). After improvements are done, the water recycling plant will be equipped to efficiently treat more of the secondary effluent produced at DSRSD's facility next door.

Construction has been carefully planned to minimize impacts on customers. Work that reduces recycling capacity will be done when demand for irrigation water is low. Large irrigation customers are being notified of unavoidable interruptions in the recycled water supply so they can adjust irrigation schedules.

Regional Investment in a Reliable Water Supply

DSRSD and East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) partnered in building the facility more than a decade ago. As a result of agreements to share and expand this valuable local resource, now the plant also supplies recycled water to the City of Pleasanton. DSRSD operates the water recycling plant and the backbone distribution system on behalf of the partnership and also is overseeing construction.

Including design work already completed, the project’s total cost is $18.2 million. The three agencies will share costs proportionate to the amounts of recycled water they supply to their customers: DSRSD 46 percent and EBMUD and Pleasanton 27 percent each. The partnership received a $150,000 federal grant for the project’s feasibility study and is pursuing additional state and federal grants and loans for a portion of construction costs.

C. Overaa & Co. (Richmond, CA) was awarded the $13.37 million construction contract. Additional contracts were awarded to The Covello Group (Walnut Creek, CA) for construction management ($1.07 million) and Carollo Engineers (Walnut Creek, CA) for engineering services during construction ($0.7 million). For more information, contact project manager Robyn Mutobe, (925) 875-2250.