Bids submitted to increase height of California’s San Vicente Dam

San Diego County Water Authority received six construction bids for a $568 million project to add 117 feet to the 220-foot-tall San Vicente Dam in Southern California.

The water authority released bidder names and bid prices:
o $22.6 million, Barnard Construction Co.;
o $33.0 million, Sukut Construction;
o $38.9 million, Quest Civil Constructors;
o $39.8 million, Kiewit Pacific;
o $44.5 million, Shimmick Construction;
o $49.8 million, Archer Western Contractors.

The authority said it is reviewing the bids and expects to award the contract in April and begin construction by early summer.

The San Vicente Dam Raise Project would more than double the storage capacity of San Vicente Reservoir. (HydroWorld 9/12/08) It will enable the reservoir to store an additional 152,000 acre-feet of water, bringing its total capacity to 242,000 acre-feet.

The city of San Diego owns and operates the dam.

The construction phase is to include excavating the dam’s foundation and preparing the site. The next phase, anticipated to begin in early 2010, includes placing roller-compacted concrete on the existing dam to heighten it.

The entire project, scheduled for completion in late 2012, would be the largest dam heightening in the world using roller-compacted concrete, the authority said. Refilling the reservoir after construction would take another two to five years.

The work is a major component of the water authority’s $1.5 billion Emergency Storage Project. When complete, the project will provide up to six months of locally stored water if a natural disaster cuts off the region’s imported water supplies. In addition to emergency storage, the enlarged San Vicente Reservoir is to hold 100,000 acre-feet of carryover storage, which would allow the water authority to store water during wet periods for use during subsequent dry years.

San Diego plans more solicitations

San Diego County Water Authority plans to issue additional solicitations for various parts of the San Vicente Dam Raise Project in 2009 and 2010, including construction of a roller-compacted-concrete dam and appurtenant facilities.

That solicitation, for work valued from $260 million to $300 million, is expected to be issued to pre-qualified prime contractors in October. SDCWA operates an Internet site with information on upcoming solicitations, www.sdcwa.org/opps/contracts.phtml.

Agency seeks up to $130 million in federal stimulus funds

In a news release about the contract bids, Board Chairman Claude Lewis said the authority is working with state and federal leaders to seek up to $130 million in federal stimulus funding for the project. (HydroWorld 2/24/09)

“The San Vicente Dam Raise is an excellent example of a ‘shovel-ready’ infrastructure project that the federal stimulus package was designed to support,” said Lewis, who did not provide other details.