Southwest Water Company
San Juan Capistrano, California
The historic city of San Juan Capistrano, California, the one the swallows are supposed to revisit annually, realized in recent years that it needed to diversify its water supply sources. Like many Southern California cities, it had been relying virtually entirely on imported water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Their concerns were intensified when the need to build several storage reservoirs reached critical mass (the city couldn’t store the recommended emergency minimums). The choice: build the expensive hillside storage facilities and continue to rely on the MWD or find another way to procure water.
Ironically, the balance-tipper came from the MWD itself in the form of a $250 per acre-foot subsidy for water produced independently. To qualify, a project’s construction had to begin by 2003 and be producing potable water by 2004. San Juan Capistrano sits atop a very large aquifer, making groundwater recovery the obvious choice, with treatment by the leading edge reverse osmosis technology. An RFP for a design-build-operate contract was issued; the contract was awarded to ECO Resources, Inc., a part of Southwest Water Company Services Group.
Southwest Water worked with the city, financial institutions and regulatory agencies to make possible the financing through a $31.5 million AAA-rated bond offering. Reporting nearly daily to the city’s department of
Public Works (the job site was right out their window), ECO Resources completed construction of the facility on time, under budget and with no reportable injuries for the 70,000 worker-hour duration. The project included drilling and equipping six wells and installing five miles of water main. The plant has the capacity to produce
4,800 acre-feet of water per year (5.1 mgd) or nearly 100 percent of San Juan Capistrano’s water needs in the winter and 50 percent in the summer.
It received the Project of the Year Award from the Southern California branch of the American Public
Works Association.
The construction of the plant was one of the factors in a water rate increase, but the percentage was less than the amount predicted had other alternatives been undertaken instead.
ECO Resources now operates the facility for the city under a 20-year, $20 million contract. |
