Background

The city of Brawley owns and operates a water treatment plant and distribution system. Established more than 70 years ago, this system is operated as an enterprise fund in which the cost of providing water services is funded primarily through flat rate user fees. The old water treatment plant had a design capacity of 16 million gallons per day (mgd), but only produced a maximum of 12 mgd due to plant hydraulics and equipment limitations. The water treatment methods used by the old plant did not comply with the latest State of California health statutes and regulations. Thus, the State of California Department of Health Services issued an order requiring the city to update and/or replace its water treatment plant.

In addition, the city’s distribution system has problems due to the corrosion of its cast iron pipes. This has caused a significant decrease in pipe capacity, which creates excessive pressure losses and reduces the utility’s ability to deliver water in the city, thus interrupting water service.

Description

This project aims to address the above-mentioned deficiencies. The elements of the project include:

· Construction of a new 15 mgd water treatment plant, expandable to 30 mgd

· Construction of raw water storage ponds, to receive and store 37 million gallons of water from the Colorado River at the treatment plant

· Installation of 5,600 linear feet of pipelines to transfer treated water from the plant to key points in the distribution system 2

· Construction of treated water storage tanks, to store 5.4 million gallons of water to augment the existing storage of 3.1 million gallons of water

· Construction of water pump stations, to pump 16,000 gallons of water per minute from the water storage tanks into the distribution system

· Replacement and extensions of pipelines within the existing distribution system, up to 40 percent of the existing mains

Benefits

This project improved the delivery and quality of potable water supply for the residents of Brawley.