Work has begun on the College Lake Integrated Resources Management Project on Holohan Road in Watsonville.
The Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency (PV Water) Board of Directors approved contracts to construct the project on Feb. 1.
Heavy equipment has been on the scene clearing away a large apple orchard and grinding up the aged trees into huge heaps of wood chips and sawdust.
A big portion of the job is the College Lake Pipeline Project, a six-mile, 30-inch water main that will transport treated water from the College Lake facility to more than 5,000 acres of farmland via the Coastal Distribution System. That system of 22 miles of pipelines currently delivers supplemental water (including recycled water) to farms along the coast to preserve the groundwater resources of the Pajaro Valley.
According to PV Water, the project will also improve fish passage and bypass flows for the endangered south-central California coast steelhead. Once completed, the project will provide the largest new source of water in the Pajaro Valley since the completion of PV Water’s Watsonville Area Water Recycling Facility in 2009, operated in conjunction with the City of Watsonville, according to the water agency.
PV Water will use water from College Lake to leverage existing water infrastructure, which will help reduce the annual groundwater deficit of approximately 12,000 acre-feet per year, the agency stated. An acre-foot is equal to 325,851 gallons, or one foot of water covering an acre of land.
“I am very excited,” PV Water Board Chair Amy Newell said Thursday. “The beginning of this project really goes back at least 12 years. It involved so many steps, agencies and meetings, and getting through the environmental impact reports. While it does take up some agricultural land, the overriding issue is that it will add tremendously to the survival of all agriculture in the Pajaro Valley.”
Newell gave credit to General Manager Brian Lockwood and Mary Bannister, whose time as general manager helped to lay the groundwork for the project.
The board awarded two contracts to Mountain Cascade, Inc., which submitted the lowest bid for each project component: the College Lake Water Treatment Plant and Intake Facilities Project in an amount of $44,989,854, and for the construction of the College Lake Pipeline Project in an amount of $23,707,310.
Construction is anticipated to take 22 months.
