SFPUC Starts Building 315-MGD Tesla Treatment Facility
California officials broke ground on May 14 on what will be the state’s largest ultraviolet (UV) water disinfection facility – the Tesla Water Treatment Facility -- when completed in 2011.
The $112-million project will use state-of-the-art UV disinfection technology to further protect the water supplies of 2.5 million Bay Area residents and create work for building and construction trade workers.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said: "Today we begin a new partnership between the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley that will bring the latest technologies to protect our water supplies and create thousands of good jobs in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties at a time when they’re urgently needed."
The facility will provide advanced disinfection for Bay Area drinking water from the Hetch Hetchy regional water system, serving 2.5 million customers. The facility will treat as much as 315 million gallons of water per day (mgd).
The project is the first of many water infrastructure improvement contracts that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will undertake in the San Joaquin region, including San Joaquin pipeline improvements and facilities. The projects are expected to create thousands of jobs and 900,000 "craft hours" of carpentry, painting, concrete, roofing, electrical, pipefitters, heavy equipment operation, masonry, trucking and hauling, and other trades in the two counties.
The Tesla Treatment Facility Project is one of 85 projects within the commission’s Water System Improvement Program to repair, replace, and retrofit aging pipelines, tunnels, reservoirs, and other water delivery facilities. Overall, these projects will generate about 11 million craft hours and 28,000 jobs throughout the greater Bay Area and the Central Valley in the next five years.