City approves $4.8 million contract to build treatment plant

The Simi Valley City Council approved nearly $6 million for contracts, purchase orders and contingency funds last week for the reconstruction of the new Tapo Canyon Water Treatment Plant.

Macro-Z-Technology, a Santa Ana-based contractor, was awarded a $4.8 million contract for construction of the new plant, which is anticipated to generate up to one million gallons per day of local potable groundwater, according to a city staff report.

The treatment plant will be used to soften groundwater from the Tapo Canyon Basin, which will help reduce the city's reliance on imported water from the Calleguas Municipal Water District.

Currently, 100 percent of the city's drinking water is imported.

The new Tapo Canyon Water Treatment Plant will replace the existing plant that was severely damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. It is expected to yield around 1,350 acrefeet of drinking water per year- which is about 2 percent of total water sales in the city. An acrefoot is estimated to be enough to supply two families for one year.

The cost of the construction will be partially offset by $1.5 million in California Proposition50 grant money that the city secured earlier this year. The proposition was passed by voters in 2002 to encourage cities and counties to utilize more local sources of water and reduce the demand on the Colorado River and Sacramento Delta.

In April, the city submitted an appeal to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), after a $509,087 grant was withdrawn due to the fact that "no substantive" progress had been made on the project since a three-year extension was granted in 2004.

The city has also received a Metropolitan Water District Local Resources Program grant of $100 per acrefoot of water produced, which will also be used to offset some of the operational and maintenance costs of the new plant.

Construction of the Tapo Canyon Water Treatment Plant is part of the city's Capital Improvement Program, which was approved shortly after the 1994 earthquake.

- Darleen Principe