Gilbert breaks ground on town’s largest-ever capital improvement project

Posted Wednesday, March 2, 2022 10:57 am

Tom Blodgett

The town of Gilbert broke ground March 1 on a reconstruction and expansion of the North Water Treatment Plant, a critical infrastructure piece as the town approaches build-out, officials said.

The plant’s expansion is the largest capital improvement project in the town’s history, officials said.

Public Works Director Jessica Marlow called that fact “fitting.”

“This is the largest source of drinking water that the town has for its community,” Marlow said. “And thanks to the long-term vision and planning of our council and the policies that we have in place, we're able to build this plant with far less impact on the community than we would've otherwise if we hadn't been planning for its eventual replacement.”

The facility provides drinking water to most of Gilbert's residents and for many of the town's commercial districts. It is expected to provide more than 70% of Gilbert's available water supply at build-out, according to town officials.

The $422 million project will take more than five years to complete, but the plant will remain operational during construction.

The renovation of the existing plant, which two town assessments found to have structural deficiencies, is being paid for through the water utility fund. Council raised water utility rates Feb. 22 in part to pay for the plant.

But the plan also calls for an expansion of the plant so that it may go from treating 45 million gallons of water per day to 60 million gallons. The expansion portion will be paid for by system development fees, which developers pay as part of their projects.

The scheduled completion is December 2027.

Mayor Brigette Peterson said all phases of the plant from design to eventual operations “demonstrate our commitment to using water efficiently from the ground to faucet.”

Approach to new plant

Town officials list four reasons a reconstruction, rather than continued renovations, and an expansion were necessary: the structural deficiencies of the current plant, deteriorating raw water quality for the plant to treat, Gilbert’s growing population, and the need to fully utilize renewable water resources and protect groundwater to meet federal requirements.

Marlow and the project’s director, Jeanne Jensen, have said the plant’s construction deficiencies have led to a shorter life than originally expected when it opened in 1995. Furthermore, fires higher on the watershed have led to soil erosion and poor runoff conditions that have made the plant need to do much more treatment to meet quality standards for drinking water.

“It wasn't designed to treat the variability of the water that we were seeing,” Marlow said. “And if you couple that with the inspections that were done that showed structural deficiencies and also the need to expand the plant, the staff determined that complete reconstruction and expansion of the facility was the most logical, sustainable and fiscally responsible solution in order to meet our future goals.”

The new plant is expected to have a service life of 50-plus years and will produce water that meets or exceeds local and national water quality standards as it will be better equipped to adapt to water quality challenges, according to the town. It also will increase service capacity from 144,000 to 250,000 residents.

The town anticipates having a population of about 330,000 at build-out in about a decade or less.

The plant will incorporate new technologies in cleaning, many of which are being tested in a pilot program rig at the plant, which treats 30,000 gallons a day in a separate building on the plant grounds. The treated water is recycled back into the plant so it is not wasted, and the results of the program will inform future operations, officials said.

From ancient past into future

At the groundbreaking ceremony, the town took time to acknowledge the Valley makes use of the canal system built by the ancient Hohokam American Indians.

“The Hohokam saw this desert not as a harsh and unyielding landscape, but as a land full of bounty and beauty,” Assistant Town Manager Leah Rhineheimer said. “By 700 AD, they had masterfully engineered much of the canal system that exists today and that we still use today. These brilliant farmers built an intricate canal system spanning more than 500 miles and serving up to 50,000 people at any one time.”

Rhineheimer noted the water routed to the plant comes to it by the Eastern Canal, which follows the course laid by the Hohokam. She called the use of the canals a stewardship for people today.

Jensen in her closing remarks at the groundbreaking noted the new plant will be serving people well into the future.

“I am absolutely humbled by the folks I see here, the leadership that allowed us to bring what at the surface probably seemed like a completely crazy, out-of-this-world idea, but to trust us, to build that case for all of you here today, so we could be thinking about the future, not just today, but for generation to come in front of us,” Jensen said.