The Graham Hill Water Treatment Plant Improvement Project aims to do that by upgrading aging infrastructure, including hardening the water treatment plant to be secure from future wildfire threats. Here are the goals of the project: 

		Deliver a climate resilient water treatment plant that meets our community’s climate change-driven challenges and ensures reliable, safe drinking water is available 24/7/365
		Upgrade aging infrastructure to meet current and anticipated seismic standards, and become a wildfire-hardened property
		Include new water treatment facilities that will operate with state-of-the-art technology, increased efficiency and greater performance, in order to meet future water quality conditions expected to be impacted by climate change
		Ensure the City of Santa Cruz is prepared to meet future regulations related to water treatment, and increase system reliability and efficiency

The Graham Hill Water Treatment Plant (GHWTP) was commissioned in 1960 and has provided high quality potable water to the City of Santa Cruz for the last 60 years. Many modifications to GHWTP have been made over the years in response to changing regulations / permit requirements and to increase system reliability.  Despite its original age, the GHWTP has adapted to operate and comply with these new regulations; however, a changing climate presents a new set of challenges that when combined with the GHWTP’s aging infrastructure and treatment processes, requires a more comprehensive upgrade.

The Facility Improvements Project (FIP) consists of improvements at the GHWTP to address aging infrastructure and to provide for efficiently and reliably meeting future water quality objectives and water supply needs. At this time the FIP is still at a conceptual level of design, which includes a wide range of technical studies, evaluations, and inspections to define the placement and scope of the improvements. As the design process progresses the Proposed Project buildings and facilities will be sized and configured within the GHWTP site appropriately, based on the information collected during the early design phase and as informed by consultation with agencies and comments received during scoping.

The project includes the following:

• New Water Treatment and Related Processes. New water treatment and related processes would rehabilitate, replace or augment the existing treatment systems at the GHWTP. The proposed treatment processes would allow the City to reliably and efficiently meet existing and reasonably foreseeable regulations even with source water that is more difficult to treat. The Proposed Project would include solids dewatering to allow for more efficient separation and disposal of solids that are removed from the raw water during the treatment process. Upgrades to the chemical feed systems would also be included as well as a replacement washwater supply tank, a new ozone contactor, pre-treatment processes, and recycled water clarifiers. Space would also be reserved for a UV disinfection system and other additional treatment processes, if needed in the future. The design capacity of the Proposed Project would be approximately 18 mgd (net), a decrease from the 24 mgd capacity of the existing treatment plant.
• New and Upgraded Buildings. The Proposed Project would include new and upgraded buildings including a new administration building and/or operations building, new maintenance building, HVAC improvements, replacement or upgrade of the filter gallery building, and new ozone, solids dewatering, and chemical storage facilities.
• Infrastructure and Site Improvements. The Proposed Project would include infrastructure and site improvements including piping and storm water management improvements; electrical, and SCADA improvements; vehicular access improvements; landscaping improvements; and may include fencing and site security.
• Removal of Existing Facilities. The Proposed Project would include demolition of some existing buildings, water treatment facilities (e.g. sedimentation basins), and infrastructure, as needed to address facilities beyond their useful life or to accommodate new facilities. 

 Project Milestones

Project Costs

Estimated Construction Cost Range: $120M -$140M

Shane Clements, sclements@cityofsantacruz.com