The focus of this workshop is the first white paper staff has produced for the directors on the infrastructure of the California Water Fix proposal.
Staff is developing a series of three white papers in order to prepare the directors to make a decision; they will be presenting them at board and committee meetings.
In his presentation, he discussed the physical infrastructure proposed for the California Water Fix, the constructability of the project and how it stacks up to other tunneling projects in general; the schedule and the cost of the program; and the risk management approach.
This criteria was set to allow Delta smelt to be able to navigate by the screens without becoming impinged against the screens; even though the Delta smelt are not known to migrate up as far north as these intakes are, if they do begin that migration in the future, these screens can be in full operation with the Delta smelt in the vicinity of the screens.” There are three tunnel reaches totaling about 13.5 miles that are associated with the North Delta intakes: there are two 28-foot diameter tunnels and one 40-foot tunnel.
“You can see that would be well beyond what the current tunneling industry has offered so far and successfully applied, so that was one of our reasons for mitigating risk at least on the tunneling side was to recommend going with twin tunnels of a smaller diameter.” Tunnel shafts will be utilized throughout the project to launch the machines as well as to retrieve them at the end of their tunnel drives, as well as for materials, staffing, ventilation and other things.
As I’ve presented before, we have about 200 borings through the Delta now.
The first cost estimate was prepared by 5RMK in 2014 which totaled $14.94 billion with approximately $9.5 in construction costs.
You’re mitigating the risk of construction.
One of the biggest risks that I see, if I understand it right, is that we still need permits in order to construct and operate the tunnels, if they’re constructed.
“That’s the whole point of the Design Construction Authority,” Roger Patterson said.