San Diego hires MWH/Brown and Caldwell team to manage city’s US$ 2.7 billion drinking water

The city of San Diego, California has selected environmental engineering, consulting, and construction team, MWH/Brown and Caldwell, to manage and assist in the delivery of the city’s US$ 2.7 billion drinking water programme, Pure Water San Diego.

Brown and Caldwell has joined consultant MWH Global and local process engineering and water quality firm Trussell Technologies for the initial five-year, US$ 30 million contract that includes management services to move the programme from planning into implementation.

Under the contract, which began in January 2015, MWH/Brown and Caldwell will provide strategic planning, project delivery, programme controls, predesign of conveyance and treatment facilities, design oversight/management, pilot testing of proposed technologies, regulatory permitting, outreach and public education, quality management, and risk mitigation services.

The programme includes a 75 Ml/d water purification facility which is scheduled for operation by 2023. The programme has a long-term goal of producing purified water, at 445 Ml/d – one third of San Diego’s future drinking water supply – by 2035. And Pure Water San Diego will greatly reduce the volume of treated wastewater discharged to the ocean.

Director of client services at Brown and Caldwell, Jay Patil, said: “With San Diego now leading the way in large-scale, state-of-the-art potable reuse implementation, many other communities will begin to look at their water supplies differently.”