San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Ed Harrington, joined by state and federal officials, this week dedicated the newly constructed, $114-million Tesla Water Treatment Facility in Tracy.
With a capacity of 315 million gallons per day (mgd), the new Tesla plant is the largest water UV facility in California and the third largest in North America. The SFPUC says this facility is being commissioned nine months before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency establishes a new requirement for a second disinfectant for all unfiltered drinking water systems in the nation.
The new facility will provide multiple redundant treatment systems to increase public health and safety for the 2.5 million customers who receive water from the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System.
The SFPUC says the construction of the facility included more than 230,000 craft hours for crafts and labor workers, with more than half from the Central Valley. It is one of 86 projects within SFPUC $4.6-billion Water System Improvement Program (WSIP) to repair, replace and retrofit aging pipelines, tunnels, reservoirs and other water delivery facilities that are part of the Hetch Hetchy system. Tesla is the only design-build project in the WSIP program. According to Danny Craig, spokesman for Stantec, the project’s designer and engineer, the facility is also targeting LEED silver certification.
PCL Civil Constructors, Inc. was the general contractor.