The Orange County Sanitation District’s Newhope-Placentia Trunk Sewer Replacement Project was recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as the Wastewater Treatment Project of the Year. The award was presented at the 2019 ASCE OC Branch Awards Dinner held on Thursday, February 21 at the City National Grove of Anaheim.

The project, known by the general public as the State College Sewer Construction, replaces almost 7 miles of sewer pipeline on State College Blvd. in the cities of Fullerton and Anaheim to increase capacity of our regional system. Once the project is complete, an additional eight million gallons of wastewater will be diverted to OCSD’s Plant No. 1 in Fountain Valley for treatment before being sent to the Orange County Water District, our partners with the Groundwater Replenishment System, to increase the amount of wastewater recycled.  In addition, we will have the ability to abandon the Yorba Linda Pump Station in the future which sits in the California State University, Fullerton campus.

The $70 million construction project was split into two phases to minimize impact to the public. Phase A was completed in 2017 in the City of Fullerton and Phase B is currently in construction in Anaheim.

The project has also provided an opportunity for OCSD to partner with Fullerton and Anaheim by consolidating their projects with ours. In Fullerton we performed our work at the same time as their Grade Separation project was taking place which required the closure of State College. This partnership and collaboration resulted in a single closure, minimizing the impact to the surrounding area.  In Anaheim, we are applying the same approach by replacing water lines for the city as we replace our sewer minimizing impact to the community. In addition, the City of Anaheim will take over the old pipe alignment so they can use it as part of their stormwater retention program thus eliminating the need for us to abandon the old line.

“The team has done an outstanding job managing this project. Not only are we replacing a large regional sewer pipeline to ensure reliability within our system, we are also increasing our efforts in water recycling, limiting our risk of spills, and reducing maintenance by allowing for the future abandonment of a pump station and force main. The engineering needs as well as the public outreach considerations were huge factors during the design and now construction of this project. The close collaboration that has taken place with the cities, might not be seen, however do benefit the community.  I am very proud of the team and their efforts, and appreciative of our city partners,” stated Rob Thompson, OCSD’s Assistant General Manager.

Phase B of the project extends along State College Blvd. from just south of the 91 freeway to Orangewood Avenue. Current construction is taking place between Orangewood Avenue and Turin Avenue. The entire project is scheduled for completion in fall 2020.

For more information on the project please visit www.ocsd.com/StateCollege.