The Santa Monica City Council will be considering whether to award an $800,000 contract tonight to an engineering services firm for the Olympic Treatment Plant Pilot.
Kansas-based engineering firm Black and Veatch is in line to receive the contract should the council approve it as part of its consent calendar at its Aug. 12 meeting.
“This project would design and install a pilot treatment unit to study the different treatment technologies available to produce California Department of Public Health (DPH) approved drinking water in the Olympic sub basin,” City staff stated. “The pilot study is the first stage in the development of the Olympic Treatment Plant to manage contaminant plumes and treat groundwater within the Olympic sub basin.”
The pilot program would follow the requirements of the Gillette/Boeing settlement.
That settlement compensates City Hall for having to clean contaminated water within the Olympic water well – located on the eastern end of Santa Monica – shortly after Douglas Aircraft Co. left town.
“The Olympic Well Field is one of three wells fields managed by the City and is located in an area formerly occupied by numerous industries. Many of these industries used volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other industrial contaminants. Releases from these operations have led to the presence of VOCs in the groundwater of the Olympic sub basin,” City staff stated.
City staff added the pilot study would help officials “test combinations of various technologies’ efficiency in treating water from the Olympic sub basin” and “require utility work to provide power, water, and wastewater services to the unit.”
Testing and monitoring would take place for at least six months and ultimately “identify benefits and impacts that these technologies may have on the City in the short and long term.”
According to City staff, Santa Monica’s Arcadia Water Treatment Plant – where water from the Olympic sub basis is pumped into – limits water production capacity at 10 million gallons per day. Sometimes, water is imported from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
“By building the full-scale Olympic Treatment Plant the City would become less reliant on imported water through increased local production capacity, independent of the Arcadia plant, to meet the City’s water demand,” City staff stated. “This project directly supports the implementation of the City’s Sustainable Water Master Plan and the reduction/elimination of imported water [and] … would culminate with a final design report presenting criteria for the design, construction, and operation of the Olympic Treatment Plant.”
Black and Veatch was one of four firms to submit bids for the pilot study. The other three included Carollo Engineers, SPI, and Worley Parsons.
City Hall selected Black and Veatch based upon its prior experience in this line of work and “successful completion of similar projects, as well as strong local and regulatory knowledge.”
City staff expects the Olympic Treatment Plant Pilot Study to be completed about 12 months after work begins.
The City will negotiate with Black and Veatch to perform several functions, including construction of the pilot facility, raw water characterization, performing desktop studies and bench scale evaluation for selection of treatment approaches, demonstrating performance of proposed treatment technologies, and the deliverance of design criteria for full-scale Olympic Treatment Plant.
City Hall would use $150,000 from the Gillette/Boeing settlement funds to partially fund the $800,000 contract.
