The Shortcut Pipeline is the primary source of drinking water for the city of Martinez. And it needs fixing.
Built in 1972, the five-mile pipeline carries an average of 13 million gallons of untreated water per day from the Contra Costa Canal in Clyde to the Martinez Reservoir.
The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider signing a letter to support the Contra Costa Water District’s (CCWD) pursuit of grant funding for the $14 million project.
According to a staff report for Tuesday’s meeting “an inspection in 2018 identified a compromised section of pipeline under the western flood control levee of the Lower Walnut Creek channel … Adding risk, the approximate half-mile section of compromised pipeline is also near the Concord Fault. It has been determined this section of the pipeline is no longer reliable.”
CCWD is pursuing federal funding through the Senate Energy and Water Development Bill (fiscal year 2023) for construction. The district is also seeking outside funding for portions of the project through state and federal implementation, infrastructure, and hazard mitigation grant programs.
The pipeline provides water to residents, businesses, and public safety in Martinez. CCWD has completed three leak repairs since the pipeline was constructed, including one near Walnut Creek and the Concord Fault after the Loma Prieta Earthquake.
Officially the Shortcut Pipeline Phase 3 Improvements Project would install two high density polyethylene pipelines under the Walnut Creek channel and connect them to the existing pipeline to bypass the damaged section of pipe. Dual pipelines ensure sufficient capacity and provides increased redundancy and seismic reliability. The pipelines will be installed by Horizontal Directional Drilling.
CCWD anticipates the project will go to bid February 2023 and construction would run from August 2023 through December 2024.
The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors meets virtually at 9 a.m. Tuesday and can be seen at www.contracosta.ca.gov or https://cccounty-us.zoom.us/j/87344719204.
$14,000,000 for 1/2 mile of pipe repair seems a bit high. But WTH, it only tax payer money.
It would be less expensive for Martinez to get treated water directly from CCWD. Instead the City Council chose to spend a lot of money repairing the city’s own water treatment plant to protect the jobs of the water plant employees. The Council couldn’t come up with any other benefit from having it’s own treatment plant.
The Martinez Water Plant is governed by the Martinez City Council. It was built in the 1940s and is still in use. It’s only updates have been to 1 part of the plant built in the 1990s that was past its lifespan. The city needs a new plant and inverstment in replacing their water pipes to prevent their weekly main breaks.
@FirstW. The southeastern part of Martinez at least already gets its water from the CCWD. Martinez should give up on running its own water treatment plant serving the older part of the city and get ALL of its drinking water from CCWD.
It would be interesting to see if CCWD would be interested in that but it would probably not be a profitable investment of their time and money.
A polyethylene pipeline will contaminate the water with microscopic pieces of plastic. A recent study in the Netherlands found tiny particles of plastic in the blood of 80% of the participants. It seems that we cannot get away from it, it’s in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Everything is made of plastic, clothes, food containers, water bottles, even the cars we drive have a considerable amount of plastic. The study shows the amount of plastic that enters our bloodstream in a week is equivalent to the size of a credit card.
Not to worry, plastic is made from petroleum, once they ban oil, we will no longer have any plastic products.
Why is Walnut Creek so slow in everything they do?
Speed it up to avoid catastrophies and law suits.!
For those wondering. The untreated water from the Contra Costa Water district is delivered to Martinez’s treatment plant via the Contra Costa Canal and/or the shortcut pipeline. From about January 1 to April 1 of each year the CC Canal is emptied for annual maintenance meaning the shortcut pipeline is the sole means of delivering water to Martinez. If there was an emergency that closed the pipeline then Martinez would draw from a reservoir that they keep topped off and CCWater would start the process of re-filling the canal i needed so that it can be used to deliver water to Martinez.
The CC Canal is the long way around through much of the central county while the shortcut pipeline runs alongside highway 4.
I wish the article explained why the county board of supervisors needed to vote on this. CCWater has their own board and I thought their budget had nothing to do with the county’s. How does the supervisors signing a letter improve the chances of CCWater getting a grant?
As the shortcut pipeline exists for the city of Martinez’s water district what is their role in financing this work?
Also, within the last couple of years was news about transferring ownership of the land, and possibly the canal itself from the US Department of the Interior to the CCWater district. Is the shortcut pipeline part of this? I know the shortcut was built later and so it’s likely the Department of the Interior was not involved. The Contra Costa canal was constructed as part of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal program to recover from the great depression. That’s why it was owned by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
I’m a bit confused. The article says that the project will go out for bid in February 2023, but it also identifies the company, Horizontal Directional Drilling, that will do the installation. Aren’t contractors normally selected AFTER a bid process?
Horizontal Directional Drilling is the method of installation, not the company name. Anyone responding to the bid will need to demonstrate they have the equipment and ability to do horizontal directional drilling (HDD). HDD is a technology that is between tunneling and installing a a trench-less sewer line. I’m assuming the flood control district does not want the water district to open a trench across their land and within the flood control channel.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directional_boring