One of California’s largest water pipeline projects will run through Elk Grove. Here’s when
A water pipeline project said to be one of the largest of its kind in California will soon break ground in Elk Grove. Its destination: thousands of acres of south Sacramento County farmland and habitat.
Construction of the Harvest Water project is set to begin late this year. The project is 41 miles of pipeline in all, stretching from Regional San’s EchoWater Resource Recovery Facility at Laguna Station Road east of Franklin Road near Interstate 5 south to Twin Cities Road near the Cosumnes River Preserve.
The water project will deliver up to 50,000 annual acre-feet of treated recycled water to irrigate up to 16,000 acres of crops, replenish wildlife habitat and raise groundwater levels.
Regional San — the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District, which, with partners, is developing Harvest Water — owns and operates the Laguna Station Road facility. The district serves about 1.6 million people, many of them in unincorporated Sacramento County.
State officials say the Harvest Water project will be the largest agricultural water recycling project in California.
Nearly $300 million in state grant funding has been committed to the water delivery project, with its aims to preserve working farms in rural south Sacramento County; reduce groundwater pumping; and improve stream flows downstream on the largely wild Cosumnes River while shoring up sensitive wetlands and habitat.
Project officials said construction crews plan to take on the pipeline sections at the same time to try to lessen traffic detours, noise and dust. Though Harvest Water anticipates a late-2023 start, the bulk of the work is expected to start next spring.
Construction is expected to disrupt traffic for Elk Grove motorists, especially along Franklin Boulevard. The pipeline’s path travels south along Franklin before cutting east onto Eschinger Road. The pipeline then turns south onto Bruceville Road to Twin Cities Road and the Cosumnes River Preserve.
Three sets of pipeline are being installed as part of the sprawling project:
▪ The Elk Grove Transmission Pipeline, installed from Regional San’s Laguna Station Road treatment plant south along Franklin Boulevard to just north of Bilby Road.
▪ The Franklin Eschinger Pipeline picks up north of Bilby Road, following Franklin Boulevard south to Core Road, east along Core, Ed Rau and Eschinger roads.
▪ A network of pipelines south of Elk Grove will make up the Central/South and West Pipelines, roughly between Eschinger Road to the north and east below Kammerer Road and Twin Cities Road to the south.
Design of a new recycled water pump station at Laguna Station Road, transmission main, distribution pipelines and connections to some 125 farm sites in the project area is wrapping up, and bids are out for much of the pipeline construction, say Regional San officials.
An exact start date has not yet been set, but community meetings 5 p.m. Sept. 20 at Hay Tone’s Hangout, 10413 Franklin Blvd., in Franklin; and 5:30 p.m. Oct. 2 at Laguna Town Hall, 3020 Renwick Ave., will provide updates on the estimated three-year project.
The California Water Commission in June agreed to commit nearly $292 million in grant funding from the state’s Proposition 1 water storage investment program, project officials said. The 2014 ballot measure dedicated $2.7 billion for investment in water storage projects across the state.
The Regional San project has received $14.4 million in early funding under the Prop 1 program. Project officials say another $30 million in federal Bureau of Reclamation grant funding is in the queue.
