Project Description

Davis-Woodland Water Supply ProjectWoodland-Davis Clean Water Agency

A. West Yost’s Role

For two decades, West Yost Associates (West Yost) has assisted the cities of Davis and Woodland in the technical feasibility studies and analysis of alternatives to most cost-effectively meet their needs. After completion of environmental documentation and formation of the Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency (Agency), a Joint Powers Authority, West Yost has served as the lead engineering firm for the initial planning efforts, water rights acquisition, technical studies, program development, and ultimately as the Owner’s Representative for the Design-Build-Operate (DBO) contract procurement, and provided preliminary design for the new regional facilities. In addition, throughout the program development, West Yost integrated public outreach and environmental permitting into the program.

The Davis-Woodland Water Supply Project (DWWSP) is a regional project that will replace deteriorating groundwater supplies with safe, more reliable surface water supplies from the Sacramento River. Once complete, the project will serve more than two-thirds of the urban population of Yolo County, CA. The primary project goals are to:

§ Provide a new water supply to help meet existing and future needs

§ Improve drinking water quality

§ Improve the quality of treated wastewater

Based upon the cost for the construction contracts now underway, and the most recent engineering estimates for the improvements yet to be bid, the development and construction of the Project is expected to cost roughly $228 million, and is one of the largest water supply projects currently underway in California.Project plans include a jointly-owned and operated intake on the Sacramento River, raw water pipelines connecting the intake to a new regional water treatment plant, and distribution pipelines delivering treated water to Woodland, Davis, and UC Davis.

“Water supply reliability, sustainability, and affordability are the fundamental elements of human safety, community well-being, and quality of life. As such, we (the Agency) take the responsibility of planning for the Cities of Davis and Woodland’s water future very seriously and believe the Agency’s concerted effort to develop this Project is an excellent example of good stewardship in public works.”

Dennis Diemer, General Manager for the Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency

C. Description of the West Yost’s Contribution to the Project

C.1 Uniqueness/innovative and new or existing techniques

Sustainable, Reliable Water Supply to Meet Communities’ NeedsThe DWWSP concept results from more than 20 years of planning prompted by serious concerns about long-term water supply reliability for the region. West Yost analyzed many options throughout the planning process, with the surface water project emerging as the best, most feasible among them. The primary driver for the surface water project is water quality regulations, for both our drinking water and treated wastewater. Under state regulations for the Central Valley, our water supply source—local groundwater—has a salt content that will be too high to discharge into the Sacramento River system after the next few years. In addition, municipal water wells have increasing concentrations of unhealthy chemicals, and there are concerns about the future quantity of groundwater supplies.

Innovative nexus between water supply and wastewater discharge standards results in design that will meet current and projected drinking water standards and stringent wastewater discharge standards. Delivery Method Reduces Overall Costs for Ratepayers: West Yost led the Agency through an exhaustive review of project delivery options, the Agency opted to proceed with a DBO procurement approach. The DBO approach provided the most affordable project with total costs included over a 15 year period including engineering design, construction, and operational costs (staffing, chemicals, maintenance, etc.) In addition, the selected DBO team provided a total project cost that was 25% less than budgeted.

B. Role of Other Participating Consultants

The following consultants had significant roles on the planning, DBO process, and pre-design associated with the DBO project:

§ Bartkiewicz, Kronick, and Shanahan (Legal)

§ ESA (Environmental)

§ Hawkins Delafield Wood (Alternative Delivery Legal)

§ Kim Floyd Communications (Public Outreach)

§ MBK Engineers (Water Rights)

§ Jacobs Associates (RWTF Site Dewatering and Fill, and Geotechnical)

§ Bender Rosenthal, Inc. (Property Acquisition)

§ Bennett Trenchless (Trenchless Crossings)

§ Frisch Engineering, Inc. (Electrical and Instrumentation)

§ Lionakis (Architectural)

§ Trussell Technologies (Water Quality and Treatment)

§ V&A Consultants (Corrosion)

Project today: all funding nearly in place; construction underway; and regulatory approvals in place; resulting in largest California water project currently under construction.

Agricultural/Urban Collaboration: West Yost has also led the effort to develop a new intake on the Sacramento River, jointly with Reclamation District 2035. This resulted in cost savings to both agencies, a single intake to serve both agricultural and municipal water needs, and a greatly reduced impact to Sacramento River habitat and fishery resources (additional environmental benefits are discussed in Section C.3 of this nomination).

Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR), an Innovative Water Storage Solution for Drought/Climate Change: West Yost developed a program of conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater, integrating an aquifer storage and recovery well program. The water treatment plant has been optimized to meet water demands over most of the year. In winter months, when demands are reduced, excess plant capacity will be used to treat surface water that will then be stored underground using the ASR program facilities. This high quality water will be extracted during periods of peak summer demand to supplement water delivered directly from the water treatment plant. Overall this approach has allowed much more efficient use of treatment facilities while maximizing surface water supply use and overall supply water quality. West Yost worked with the Agency in developing an ASR program that includes facilities to allow Woodland to implement ASR immediately after project completion, and Davis to consider ASR in the future.

As part of this program, West Yost developed one of the first ASR projects implemented under State Water Resources Control Board’s new statewide program to more efficiently deal with ASR well development.ASR will improve the DWWSP’s operational flexibility and reliability in meeting demands during normal, dry and critical years, without placing any substantial additional demands on the overall surface water and groundwater supply of the region. ASR will also facilitate fuller use of Agency water rights and entitlements, and maximize Agency control of water supply sources.

“This project improves drinking water quality for the residents of Yolo County, while

also improving water quality in the Sacramento River and in the imperiled Sacramento-

San Joaquin Delta. This is a rare opportunity to move forward a project that truly benefits

both the water supply of this region and the ecosystem of the Delta, and I am happy to

support efforts to secure both state and federal funding.”State Senator Lois Wolk

“The ASR Well 28, is a pivotal project, further increasing the community’s sustainable water supply and meeting both short- and long-term goals for the City.”

- Douglas Baxter, Principal Civil Engineer, City of Woodland

State-of-the-Art Treatment Facilities Meet Today’s Regulatory Standards and Increase Project’s State of Readiness for Future Regulations: West Yost’s team established the drinking water quality objectives for the Project to achieve all regulatory requirements with a margin of safety, and to minimize the occurrence of synthetic organic chemicals now and in the future. The result was that the most efficient process was based on a combination of Actiflo™, followed by ozone and GAC treatment.

The treatment processes for this project were selected to meet the water quality conditions of the Sacramento River. In addition to meeting current drinking water standards, the plant’s

process design is forward-thinking to include provisions for future anticipated regulations such as organic chemicals, personal care products and emerging contaminants of concern. In addition, energy efficiency requirements have been built into the contract to incentivize the DBO team to greatly reduce the project’s energy use and resulting carbon footprint.C.2 Future value to the engineering profession and perception by the public

Public Outreach and Rates/Project Acceptance: The Project’s costs were anticipated to increase water rates dramatically. As a result the public was concerned about high rates. Both cities formed water advisory committees to provide a public review of all project elements and advise the councils during critical votes on the project. In Davis, sufficient concern was raised to precipitate a public vote on whether to proceed with the project. During this period, West Yost worked with the Agency and the cities as they considered and ultimately approved a number of changes in the project to lower capacity and reduce overall project costs. The result of these actions, as well as the state loan (discussed in Section C.3 of this nomination) culminated in a project configuration and financing program that has reduced project cost by over 35%.

Both cities have devoted considerable effort to providing their citizens with information on the proposed project, and established formal committees with the express purpose of conducting significant review of all the technical aspects of the project and making recommendations to the councils on their thoughts on how best to proceed. Issues related to the need for the project, project sizing, construction costs and related user rates have been discussed in great detail.

CH2MHill was selected for the DBO project. CH2MHill’s rendering of the water treatment plant (CH2MHill Rendering pictured)

Keys to Community Acceptance

Including an outreach program with a critical role in achieving public and political support

Maintaining an open dialogue with all public stakeholders during the 5 year project planning and procurement period

Working with active and engaged council members who worked tirelessly to educate constituents

Establishing support for the project with state and federal political leaders and funding agencies, and with local supervisors, council persons, environmental groups and local businesses

West Yost assisted with public meetings and tours were conducted throughout the project.

C.3 Social, economic and sustainable design considerations

Quality and the Environment: The development of the environmental documents for the project extended over several years culminating in certification of the final EIR. Significant effort was devoted to the issues of growth, impacts on downstream water bodies, energy use and carbon footprint prior to and after project implementation, impacts on the Sacramento River fishery, and other local and regional issues. The resultant impact of improved source water quality on the quality of wastewater discharges is significant, and will facilitate greatly reduced salt loading from wastewater discharges on downstream water bodies like the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

All of these considerations have resulted in an environmentally positive project that has been endorsed by regulatory agencies and environmental organizations.Significant Environmental Benefits of Intake: The intake, which is to be jointly constructed by the Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency (WDCWA) and Reclamation District 2035 (RD 2035), will replace the largest unscreened intake on the Sacramento River north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The new intake will feature fish screens to prevent the entrapment of juvenile salmon and other threatened and endangered fish species. For that reason, the project has earned broad support from federal officials and agencies interested in improving ecosystem conditions in the Delta and connected waterways. Environmental benefits of the joint intake include:

§ Replaces largest unscreened intake on the Sacramento River

§ Improves protections for threatened fish populations

§ Supports environmental restoration of the Delta

§ Avoids construction of two intakes

Ability to Secure Optimal Funding Benefits Community Ratepayers: West Yost’s team also provided technical guidance and coordination for successful major loan applications with the State’s two largest Revolving Fund Programs including a Safe Drinking Water SRF loan ($143,000,000), and two Clean Water SRF loans ($95,000,000 and $35,000,000).

Due to the favorable loan provisions, a significant amount of savings will be realized over the course of the SRF loans. The total anticipated interest savings are in excess of $150 million to both cities for SRF financing vs. conventional revenue bond financing. C.4 Complexity

This project is one of the largest and most complex water supply projects to be contracted via alternative delivery in California this past year. In addition, it touches virtually every aspect of water resource planning and program implementation including surface water, groundwater, wastewater, aquifer storage and recovery, water right acquisition – through both purchase and application, and much more. This project demonstrates the interconnected nature of water supply planning and implementation today, including connections between sources (groundwater/surface water), connections between water rights and reliability, between water and wastewater, between municipalities and their customers, project needs and funding programs, and many others. A story of connections that is best understood as a sum greater than its individual parts.

C. 5 Successful fulfillment of client/owner needs.

Please see the letter from the Agency that summarized their satisfaction with the project and the outstanding work provided over many years by West Yost and our team.