$4 Million Grant Awarded to Expand San Ramon Valley Recycled Water Program

The California Department of Water Resources, Division of Integrated Regional Water Management (DWR- IRWM), announced an award of a $4 million grant to expand the San Ramon Valley Recycled Water Program, a partnership known as the Dublin San Ramon Services District (DSRSD) and East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) Recycled Water Authority. The expansion will bring recycled water for landscape irrigation to the Santa Rita Jail and Federal Correctional Institution in central Dublin, areas west of Interstate 680 in Dublin, and additional parts of Bishop Ranch, central San Ramon, and Danville.

“By expanding our recycled water system, we’ll be providing immediate drought relief, saving 867 acre feet of drinking water every year,” said DSRSD Interim Engineering Services Manager Rhodora Biagtan, “That’s more than 282 million gallons of water saved every year, enough to supply 1,935 DSRSD families.”

Recycled water is highly-treated wastewater used for landscape irrigation or industrial purposes. It flows through a system of reservoirs, pumps and pipes separate from the distribution system that delivers water to household taps.

“The biggest challenge with increasing our number of recycled water customers is the high cost of constructing a separate distribution system,” said EBMUD General Manager Alexander Coate. “This grant accelerates our construction and gets us $2 million and nearly half a million gallons per day closer to our long-term goal of increasing our recycled water supply, and our short-term goal of managing through this historic drought.”

This $4 million grant was one of 11 projects in the San Francisco Bay Area to receive funding from the DWR-IRWM 2014 Drought Grant Solicitation. The expansion will add nearly nine miles of new pipelines to the existing 44.2 miles of recycled water distribution and transmission pipelines. The total cost of the project is $11.8 million ($6 million for pipelines serving DSRSD customers and $5.8 million for pipelines serving EBMUD customers).

This project has three pipeline components:

Project Component #1, Central Dublin Pipeline, adds 1.5 miles of pipe to deliver an average of 147 acre feet per year of recycled water to six federal and county facilities in Dublin. Construction is expected to begin as early as December and be completed by January 2015.

Project Component #2, West Dublin Pipeline, adds 3.6 miles of recycled water pipe to deliver an average of 160 acre feet of water per year to 34 customers located west of Interstate 680 along Amador Valley Boulevard in western Dublin, including city streetscapes and parks, elementary schools, business parks, and a fire station. Design is expected to be completed by April 2015, and construction will occur during the summer.

Project Component #3, San Ramon Valley Phase 2, adds 3.6 miles of recycled water pipe and expands the EBMUD recycled water distribution system into the Bishop Ranch Business Park. Once installed, the pipes will deliver about 477 acre feet of recycled water for landscape irrigation to 39 irrigation customers including AT&T, City of San Ramon and Sunset Development. Construction work in the Bishop Ranch area is expected to begin next year.

History of SRVRWP

Operational since 2006, the San Ramon Valley Recycled Water Program has provided more than seven billion gallons of recycled water to 358 locations. Phases one and two of this project cost $87 million and included construction of the Jeffrey G. Hansen Water Recycling Facility, two reservoirs, six pump stations, and 16.7 miles of the transmission pipeline, the backbone of the system from which the smaller distribution pipelines serve individual customers.

More than 20 percent of the water used by DSRSD customers is recycled.

Last year, EBMUD daily provided almost 8.1 million gallons of recycled water for landscaping, commercial, and industrial needs. That’s as much water as nearly 33,000 average EBMUD households use each day. In addition to the San Ramon Valley Recycled Water program, EBMUD also provides recycled water to customers in Richmond, Emeryville, Oakland and Alameda.

DSRSD provides water to Dublin and the Dougherty Valley area of San Ramon and EBMUD serves the rest of San Ramon, Danville and 20 other communities in the East Bay.

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