Poway City Council approves plan to issue $38M in bonds for water storage project - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Poway City Council approves plan to issue $38M in bonds for water storage project - Pomerado News

Poway City Council approves plan to issue $38M in bonds for water storage project

The Poway City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to issue up to $38 million in bonds for construction of two 4 million-gallon concrete water tanks at the Lester J. Berglund Water Treatment Plant.

Building the tanks to replace an outdated 10 million-gallon water storage reservoir near Lake Poway is the city’s largest capital improvement program since it incorporated in 1980, said Shadi Sami, principal civil engineer of Poway’s public works department.

The new water storage system is needed to provide safe and reliable water service now that the existing system has reached the end of its useful life, she told council members. The new concrete tanks are expected to be durable and long-lasting, she said.

Poway Mayor Steve Vaus said the project is long overdue.

“It’s a little bit daunting to look at the number $38 million but this is the right thing to do,” Vaus said.

The city has been looking at replacing the clearwell — a water storage system sealed with a reinforced floating cover and lined bottom — since 2014, according to a staff report. A detailed assessment of the clearwell, which is the source of the city’s drinking water distribution system, was performed in October 2019 and the city determined that both the floating cover and liner were due for replacement.

Then in late 2019, a malfunction at the water treatment plant led to contamination of the city’s drinking water supply. Residents noticed discolored water coming from their faucets in late November 2019. As a result, the city issued a boil water advisory and encouraged residents to boil tap water before consumption for nearly a week.

Councilmember Peter De Hoff said one of the positive outcomes of the six-day boil water advisory in Poway was a high-level review of the overall risk profile of the drinking water treatment operation.

“From the clearwell replacement to the San Diego County Water Authority treated water connection, to a number of internal changes being made away from the public eye, Poway’s water treatment and distribution system is being dramatically transformed into a more robust, more redundant and safer operation,” De Hoff said in an email after the meeting.

Tim McDermott, Poway’s interim director of finance, said the multi-phase water infrastructure project to replace the 10 million-gallon reservoir, known as the clearwell, has been planned by the city for several years. Bonds of $12.93 million were issued in November 2021 to pay for the design and construction of the clearwell bypass project and planning and design of the clearwell replacement project.

The completed bypass project enables the replacement of the clearwell by bypassing it with a pipeline that moves treated water around the clearwell and into the water distribution system.

A related project involves building a treated water connection to the San Diego County Water Authority’s treated water aqueduct, according to a water infrastructure program description on the city’s website.

“This project will help diversify Poway’s water supply portfolio and allow for operational flexibility and plant maintenance,” the website states. “It will also provide a redundant pipeline to the 36-inch water transmission line on Lake Poway Road, which is currently the single transmission line that carries treated water to the distribution system.”

Bids were advertised for the clearwell replacement project on May 11 and three bids were accepted in the range of $31.64 million to $46 million, Sami said. The City Council is expected to award a construction contract on Sept. 19.

Even if the lowest bid is selected, the city is preparing for additional costs such as change orders, a full-time security guard, construction management and insurance, and construction administration, Sami told the council members.

Construction on the clearwell replacement project is tentatively estimated to start fall 2023 and be completed in fall 2026, Sami said.

The water authority pipeline project is estimated to start construction in summer 2024 at the earliest.

The bonds being issued to cover the project expenses have been rated by Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency at a double A minus, which shows a very strong capacity to meet the financial commitments, McDermott said.

The bonds will be repaid with revenue generated by the city’s water system after maintenance and operation costs are funded, according to a staff report. The current four-year water rate plan for water, recycled water and wastewater was adopted by the City Council on Nov. 2, 2021, the report states.

De Hoff said the new water tanks will have thick prestressed concrete walls, which are more durable than the thin liner of the original clearwell.

“While this liner was well-maintained over the past 57 years by the skilled technicians in Poway’s Public Works Department and there was no evidence of leaks, it was a dropped bucket of tools away from potentially crippling Poway’s water system,” De Hoff said.

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