Shimmick Construction Co. is general contractor on a $373.8 million design-bid-build contract for San Diego’s North City Pure Water Facility and Pumping Station, a 30-million-gallon-per- day that is part of the Pure Water San Diego. Program This effort aims to bolster the city’s local water supply and reduce reliance on imported water from the drought-plagued Colorado River and Northern California Bay Delta.
The plant will use a five-step process (including ozonation, activated carbon biological filters, membrane filtration, reverse osmosis and UV light with advanced oxidation) to purify recycled water from the city’s reclamation plant to water standards potable It will be transported through the pumping station to the city’s Miramar Reservoir for further treatment before being released to users.
150K
Number of jobs created from federal WIFIA loans closed to date
Source: epa.gov
The project is currently at 73 percent completion, scheduled for completion in the spring of 2026, with most of the underground piping done and most of the concrete structures built, says Jimmy Draper, vice president of the Southern Division -west of Shimmick. The focus is now on the scope of services for mechanical and electrical systems.
There is also a Parsons-Black & Veatch team as construction manager; Carollo Engineers as disc designer; and Stantec as a program management consultant.
The plant is part of the $1.5 billion first phase of the Pure Water program. The second phase will add capacity to purify an additional 53 mgd, although costs are being worked out. Nearly half of the city’s local water supply will come from the program by 2035. It is the “largest integrated infrastructure program … that San Diego has ever undertaken,” according to the city.
