The Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District board meeting Thursday, Dec. 14, included a 5-0 vote to award Garney Pacific Inc. the contract to construct the Lee Lake wellhead facilities. The EVMWD board meeting Thursday, Jan. 11, included a 5-0 vote to award Systems Integrated a contract to provide telemetry control panels at the wellhead facilities.
The Elsinore Valley district is part of the Santa Ana River Conservation and Conjunctive Use Program to develop dry-year supply by banking wet-year water and also integrating habitat enhancement and water conservation programs. The EVMWD participation in the SARCCUP includes storing water in the Elsinore Valley Groundwater Basin. The storage will not exceed 1,500 feet in any given year, but three wet years within a 10-year period would result in 4,500 acre-feet of storage. Up to 1,500 acre-feet a year would be extracted in dry years.
The storage program will involve the construction of two domestic production wells in the Lee Lake Groundwater Basin, which will be the first use of the basin for potable water. The wells will be located on existing EVMWD property. The Lee Lake Groundwater Basin has been used for agricultural water since 1924, and the Elsinore Valley district began using the basin after acquiring the Temescal Water Company assets in 1989.
A March 2017 EVMWD board action approved a professional services contract with Kennedy/Jenks Consultants, which is based in San Francisco and has offices in San Diego and Murrieta, for as-needed civil design services for the Palomar, Warm Springs and Lee Lake wells. The scope of the work includes engineering and design services for the wellhead facilities, pipelines and facets required to equip new groundwater wells or rehabilitate existing groundwater wells. Kennedy/Jenks will also provide engineering services for all related structural, architectural, electrical, instrumentation, mechanical, pipeline, site grading, storage tank and chemical feed facilities. A November 2019 board meeting approved the environmental mitigated negative declaration and mitigation monitoring and reporting program for the Lee Lake wellhead facilities.
In August 2021, the EVMWD board approved a $781,820 contract with Southwest Pump & Drilling for the Coachella company to drill two wells at Lee Lake. The scope of work included pilot holes, drilling and installing the conductor casings, reaming the new wells to the specified diameters, installing well casings and testing the pumps. The drilling of those wells began in December 2021 and was completed in March 2022.
The scope of work to construct the Lee Lake wellhead facilities includes two well pumps and associated discharge piping and valves, two sand separators and associated piping, a per and polyfluoroalkyl substances treatment system including pre-filtration with two bag filters, a granular activated carbon treatment system, a backwash system, an above-ground welded steel baffled chlorine contact tank, an infiltration pond and waste tank and a mechanical building approximately 2,400 square feet with a booster pump room, an ammonia room, a sodium hypochlorite room, an electrical room and an operator/lab room. A June 2023 board action approved a $1,532,655.45 construction management and inspection services contract with MWH Constructors Inc. An invitation for bids to construct the Lee Lake wellhead facilities was issued August 29.
Six companies submitted bids by the Oct. 31 deadline. MMC Inc., which is headquartered in La Palma, had the low bid of $15,634,000 but had incomplete good faith effort documentation so the bid was deemed non-responsive. Garney Pacific Inc., whose office is in Tracy, had the next-lowest bid at $15,808,000, and a review of bid documents and references determined that Garney Pacific was qualified to perform the work.
The corporate office of Systems Integrated is in Orange while the engineering center is in San Diego. The task order for $285,627 will provide three complete terminal control panels and all associated radios and radio masts.
Joe Naiman can be reached by email at jnaiman@reedermedia.com.
