By any measure, San Francisco's effort to seismically upgrade its water supply is big. The $4.765-billion Water System Improvement Program (WSIP) includes 83 separate projects spread throughout the Bay Area and beyond. Continuously under way for 10 years, construction isn't expected to wrap until 2018. Currently, 16 projects are under construction that total $2.7 billion in contract value.
Yet one of the most critical links in the chain of projects is a comparatively small, $75.1-million upgrade to a pair of water pipelines that cross the Hayward Fault in Fremont.