The project will allow the city to preserve its water rights and provide inhabitants with approximately 6 million gallons of potable water per day, despite increased quantities of brackish water in the San Joaquin River due to California’s revolving drought years and heavy agriculture irrigation demands. In summer, when raw water levels in the river are lower due to irrigation demands in the central valley, water approaching the Suisan Bay has higher salinity levels. This seasonal irrigation demand allows sea water to travel further inland from the San Francisco Bay thru the Suisun Bay and into the San Joaquin Delta System.
To combat this increase in water salinity, Shimmick will add a desalination reverse osmosis (RO) treatment train to the existing Antioch Water Treatment Plant (WTP). The existing WTP has two separate water treatment process trains: Plant A, built in the early 1960’s, and Plant B, built in 2010. Shimmick’s scope also includes construction of a new river pump station and intake structure with three 600 horsepower medium voltage vertical turbine pumps to take in water from the San Joaquin River into the plant, bypassing the plant’s reservoir with a bypass pipeline so that the city’s reservoir is not contaminated by the brackish water.
