Construction begins on high tech water plant
By: Juliana Bunim
05/14/09 9:03 PM PDT
Mayor Gavin Newsom broke ground Thursday on what will be the largest ultraviolet water treatment plant in California. Using state-of-the-art UV disinfection technology, the $112 million Tesla Treatment Facility will treat 315 gallons of water per day from the Hetch Hetchy system.It will also create hundreds of thousands of jobs for building and construction workers in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.
“Today we break ground on more than just an innovative major new water treatment plant,” said Mayor Newsom. “Today we begin a new partnership between the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley that will bring the latest technologies to protect our water supplies and create thousands of good jobs in San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties at a time when they’re urgently needed.”
The new facility is slated for completion in 2011.
The plant is one of 85 projects within the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s Water System Improvement Program to repair, replace and retrofit aging pipelines, tunnels, reservoirs and other water-delivery facilities. Overall, these projects will generate about 28,000 jobs throughout the greater Bay Area and the Central Valley in the next five years.



