Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

Rainbow MWD approves change order with Kennedy/Jenks

Tom Kennedy, general manager of Rainbow Municipal Water District, is not related to the principal with the Kennedy/Jenks consulting firm which has a contract with the district for the design of lift station projects. The contract had been for $1,434,485 and was scheduled to expire Dec. 31, but a 5-0 Rainbow board vote, Dec. 8, approved a change order increasing the contract to $1,674,108 while extending the contract until July 30, 2021.

“I’m looking forward to this now six, almost seven-year contract getting wrapped up,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy/Jenks Consultants is based in San Francisco and has offices in San Diego and Murrieta. In March 2014, Rainbow’s board approved a contract with Kennedy/Jenks to provide design, environmental permitting and construction oversight services for the replacement of Lift Station No. 1.

Lift Station No. 1 is off Old River Road and delivers sewage effluent to the city of Oceanside, which has an ocean outfall. The package lift station has three five-horsepower wet well/dry well pumps and a 750-gallon working volume wet well. The pump station was built in 1974, and the pumps were replaced in 1994.

The lift station’s firm capacity is 1,250 gallons per minute.

During wet weather flows, the station pumps an average of 1,400 gallons per minute by running pumps up to 13 times per hour. Additional development is expected to increase the necessary lift station volume, and the ultimate required capacity is more than 2,600 gallons per minute.

The lift station is also in need of structural, electrical and mechanical repair. Rainbow's 2000 master plan identified the need for the eventual replacement of Lift Station No. 1 and adjacent pipelines. In December 2013, Rainbow staff prepared a request for proposals for the design contract, and Kennedy/Jenks had the highest score among the four firms which responded.

Kennedy/Jenks submitted a predesign report which summarized the required improvements. The report stated that upsizing the existing sewer siphon to accommodate the predicted ultimate flows would require a new siphon to be drilled horizontally under the San Luis Rey River with a depth of approximately 80 feet to avoid bedrock. A new lift station on the north side of the river would avoid the need for a deep siphon, and after a 1.36-acre site on Thoroughbred Lane adjacent to Bonsall Village Center became available Rainbow’s board approved the purchase of that property in February 2017.

The initial design was reevaluated, and it was determined that upsizing a stretch of sewer main along state Route 76 and placing an equalization basin upstream of the existing siphon could level out the flows through the siphon to meet existing capacity requirements for Lift Station No. 1.

Moving the flow equalization upstream would also allow the new Schoolhouse Lift Station at Old River Road and Calle De Las Estrellas to replace Lift Station No. 1 without upsizing the line to the Old River Lift Station. The equalization basin will be constructed near Thoroughbred Road and Highway 76.

“We spent a lot of time looking at alternatives to convey wastewater,” Kennedy said.

“It was a very comprehensive analysis,” Chad Williams, acting district engineer of Rainbow Municipal Water District, said.

The design work also includes relocating transmission pipelines from easements, alleys and other locations which are difficult to access and make maintenance more difficult and pipe failures more costly.

“We’re trying to bring the pipeline into roadways,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy/Jenks has completed the design work of replacing Lift Station No. 1 with the Schoolhouse Lift Station. The design includes improvements to an existing gravity main at Golf Club Drive and Camino Del Rey.

On April 28, Rainbow’s board approved an out-of-agency service agreement between Rainbow and the Valley Center Municipal Water District for Rainbow to serve Pardee Homes’ planned Meadowood development. Rainbow is also working with San Diego County’s Local Agency Formation Commission to annex the Meadowood area and detach that area from the Valley Center district.

“That came with an additional $10.5 million,” Kennedy said. “We knew that we had a pool of money to move forward decisively.”

Pardee will pay all applicable water capacity fees which are charged to developers to cover the new development’s share of existing infrastructure while the agreement sets sewer capacity fees at $10.5 million. Pardee is using Dexter Wilson Engineering Inc. for the design of the transmission line extension through Meadowood.

Dexter Wilson analyzed the district’s existing wastewater conveyance system to determine what facilities would be needed to accommodate Meadowood’s sewer discharge requirements.

The needs included the Thoroughbred Lift Station and appurtenant pipeline modifications, a force main from the Thoroughbred Lift Station to Old River Road, upsizing the existing sewer line along Route 76 and a gravity main from Olive Hill Road to the Thoroughbred Lift Station.

The analysis also projected needed improvements to wastewater facilities along North River Road and to gravity sewer mains along Old River Road.

Some of the improvements recommended by Dexter Wilson were included in draft scenarios prepared by Kennedy/Jenks but never completed. Rainbow staff sought a scope of work and proposed fee from Kennedy/Jenks for the design of the Thoroughbred Lift Station, the force main, the upsized sewer line along Route 76 and the gravity main along with the necessary documentation for California Department of Transportation permitting and an environmental mitigated negative declaration.

Kennedy/Jenks provided a price of $390,180, which would add $239,623 to the contract amount, and indicated that the work could be completed by the end of fiscal year 2020-2021.

Rainbow also asked Dexter Wilson for a quote, but Dexter/Wilson has not performed previous work so the company’s estimate was $959,700 with a schedule about twice as long as the Kennedy/Jenks offer. Dexter Wilson, which is headquartered in Carlsbad, received a small contract to guide Kennedy/Jenks.

The environmental review is expected to be complete by February 2021, and the design of the lift station, force main, upsized sewer line and gravity main is expected to be complete by June 2021. Rainbow and Kennedy/Jenks expect the construction contract to be advertised for bid in summer 2021.

Joe Naiman can be reached by email at [email protected].

Author Bio

Joe Naiman, Writer

Joe Naiman has been writing for the Village News since 2001

 

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