Award: California water treatment plant
Value: $210 million for phase one
Location: Placer County, California
Client: Placer County Water Agency
Following a $200 million contract win in April for a water facility in Nevada, Carollo Engineers has nabbed another water job, this time in California.
The firm will manage construction on phase 1 of the new Ophir Water Treatment Plant in Placer County, California, Carollo announced June 16. Once complete, the new plant will alleviate demand on the Placer County Water Agency’s current facilities, which approach peak operational capacity during the summer.
The plant will be located on a 22‑acre site along Ophir Road in Auburn, California, a town about 33 miles north of Sacramento. The first phase will cost $210 million, per the builder. The plant will initially add 10 million gallons per day of treated water capacity, which is enough to serve 10,000 families.
Walnut Creek, California-based Carollo will manage schedule and cost tracking, inspection, documentation and project coordination during the plant’s initial phase. Future plans, phases and contract amounts were not disclosed in the news release, and Carollo did not respond for comment by the time of publication.
The water contractor will also perform supervisory control and data acquisition programming, also known as SCADA programming, which creates software applications in industrial settings that control a series of hardware components.
When finished, the Ophir plant will support up to 30 million gallons per day of treatment capacity.
Drought conditions have been widespread and persistent across California, which has become drier since 1895, according to the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, with five of the 30 driest months on record occurring in 2021 and 2022. Placer County currently holds an “abnormally dry” rating from the U.S. Drought Monitor.
To that end, the facility will relieve capacity constraints at PCWA’s Foothill Water Treatment Plant in Newcastle, the agency’s largest facility, per Carollo.
“The Ophir Water Treatment Plant will deliver a resilient, reliable water supply for the community while reinforcing the region’s critical water infrastructure for generations to come,” said Keith Corcoran, Carollo principal-in-charge, in the news release.
Water infrastructure work has gained momentum across the country among both large, public builders and regional contractors such as Carollo. In April, Carollo landed a $200 million contract to manage construction of a water reuse facility north of Reno, Nevada.
