The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission last week awarded the contract for the Sunol Valley Water Treatment Plant Expansion and Treated Water Reservoir Project to Shimmick Construction Co. Inc of Oakland.

Shimmick submitted the lowest qualified bid at $83.1 million, which is $27 million below the SFPUC�s engineers� estimate.

Two certified Local Business Enterprise firms � R&W Concrete out of Burlingame and SF Transport of San Francisco � were awarded $6.7 million of the total contract amount.

Shimmick Construction successfully completed the seismic retrofit of San Francisco�s largest in-city reservoir, the Sunset Reservoir, in 2009.

This project is a part of the SFPUC�s $4.6 billion Water System Improvement Program to repair, replace, and seismically upgrade the aging Hetch Hetchy Water System.

Construction is expected to start in mid-June on this upgrade to the Sunol Valley Water Treatment Plant.

The plant treats all of the water from the two reservoirs in the East Bay�s Alameda watershed before it is delivered to customers.

The SFPUC says that should an earthquake cut the Bay Area off from Sierra Nevada water supplies, which make up 85% of the system�s water, the Sunol Valley Water Treatment Plant will be called into service to treat higher volumes of water to meet customer demand.

This project will enable the plant to sustainably treat 160 million gallons of water per day for up to 60 days following a seismic event.

The project will also construct a 17.5-million-gallon circular treated water reservoir to function as a balancing reservoir to improve plant operation and water quality.

Supporting Shimmick on this project will be CH2M Hill, the construction management consultant for most of the Water System Improvement Projects in the Sunol region.

The SFPUC also recently awarded two other Water System Improvement Program projects.

The La Grande Pump Station Project in San Francisco, which will begin construction at the end of April, 2010, was awarded to Trinet Construction, Inc of San Francisco. The total contract amount is $2.6 million, 17.4% of which was awarded to five certified Local Business Enterprise companies in San Francisco: Bayline Cutting, Flynn Transport, Harrison, Value Fire Protection and Phoenix Electric.M

The New La Grande Pump Station will replace the existing pump station with a new seismic design that will be able to provide water to customers after an earthquake.

The SFPUC also recently awarded the construction contract for the San Francisco the San Joaquin Pipeline System/Crossovers Project to West Bay Builders Inc.

Located in Stanislaus County, the project will construct two new crossover facilities on the SFPUC�s San Joaquin Pipeline System.

These crossovers allow the SFPUC to isolate smaller portions of the pipeline system for regular maintenance or repair.

West Bay Builders was the lowest bidder on the $11.7 million contract, 25.63% of which will go to regional subcontractors as part of the certified Regional Local Business Enterprise Program.

Construction is scheduled to begin in fall 2010.