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The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) recently recognized Orange County Sanitation District’s as the Wastewater Treatment Project of the Year. The award was presented at the 2019 ASCE OC Branch Awards Dinner held in late February at the City National Grove of Anaheim.
Publicly known as the State College Sewer Construction the project is on target to replace nearly seven miles of sewer pipeline on State College Blvd. through the cities of Anaheim and Fullerton. Once completed the project will increase the capacity of the regional wastewater and related systems. It will increase the amount of wastewater that is recycled. It will increase by an additional eight million gallons of wastewater that will be diverted to OCSD’s Plant No. 1 in Fountain Valley before being sent to the Orange County Water District (OCWD). OCSD and OCWD are partners in the Orange County Groundwater Replenishment System jointly working to increase the amount of wastewater being recycled in Orange County.
The project was split into two phases to minimize public impact. Phase A in the city of Fullerton was completed in 2017 and Phase B is currently in construction in Anaheim. When completed the construction project is expected to total $70 million. An additional benefit to the completed project will be the abandonment of the Yorba Linda Pump Station on the California State University, Fullerton campus.
The Newhope-Placentia Trunk Sewer Replacement Project has also provided an opportunity for OCSD to partner with the cities of Fullerton and Anaheim. In Fullerton, the OCSD project was performed at the same time as their Grade Separation project was taking place. By consolidating the timelines of both projects it necessitated just one closure of State College Blvd., thereby minimizing the impact to the local area.
The same approach is being undertaken in Anaheim. The city was scheduled to replace water lines when OCSD was replacing its sewers in the city and the work for the two projects was done in tandem to ease the impact to the community. Additionally, Anaheim will be assuming OCSD’s old pipe alignment to use as part of their stormwater retention program thus eliminating the need for OCSD to abandon the old line.
Phase B, in Anaheim, extends along State College Blvd. from just south of the 91 freeway to Orangewood Avenue. Current construction is taking place between Orangewood Avenue and Turin Avenue. The entire project is scheduled for completion in fall 2020.
Rob Thompson, OCSD’s assistant general manager praised the district’s employees saying, “The team has done an outstanding job managing this project. Not only are we replacing a large regional sewer pipeline to ensure reliability within our system, we are also increasing our efforts in water recycling, limiting our risk of spills, and reducing maintenance by allowing for the future abandonment of a pump station and force main. The engineering needs as well as the public outreach considerations were huge factors during the design and now construction of this project. The close collaboration that has taken place with the cities, might not be seen, however do benefit the community. I am very proud of the team and their efforts, and appreciative of our city partners.”
