Water Pipeline Bid Approved

A bid to construct an 11-mile-long, $75 million water pipeline through Las Posas Mountain and San Marcos was awarded Monday by the San Diego County Water Authority to a Vancouver, Wash., company.

Water officials say that when the nine-foot-diameter, steel pipeline becomes operational--two years from now--it will allow the wholesale water purveyor to buy an additional 5% more water for distribution to the 25 public water agencies it supplies throughout the county.

The new pipeline will also help the County Water Authority better distribute water throughout the county, said senior civil engineer Gary Stine.

The new pipeline will connect to an existing California Aqueduct pipeline about five miles north of San Marcos, travel through the Twin Oaks Valley and run through a 1,685-foot-long tunnel to be blasted through Las Posas Mountain on San Marcos’ south side. The pipeline will then reconnect to the main water artery near Questhaven Road in the Elfin Forest area, Stine said.

The bid was awarded to Kiewit Pacific Company, one of five competitors for the two-year construction project expected to begin in about a month.

Stine likened the additional pipeline to the construction of a freeway to parallel an existing one, saying it will allow the water authority to more efficiently distribute water to the water agencies that buy water from the wholesaler.

Some water reservoirs in the county occasionally run low on water because of distribution problems that will be corrected with the new pipeline, he said.

The pipeline will have the capability to carry 400 million gallons of water per day, Stine said.