It’s a resource that none of us can live without,
and in many parts of the world it’s becoming scarce.
The United Nations is warning today of an approaching global water crisis.
A new UN report has revealed the scale of water scarcity across the world.
We are in the midst of an ongoing water crisis
and without intervention that crisis will only get worse into the future.
But while the worst effects are being felt in developing countries,
one region known for its prosperity is facing a water crisis of its own — California.
Part of the solution could lie in megaprojects like this.
In 2022, the state recorded one of its driest years ever — part of a multi-year drought.
600 square miles of farmland in Sacramento Valley
had to be left fallow — with no crops planted — due to low water levels.
But the completion of a massive new water infrastructure project in the city of
Sacramento is offering some welcome relief, and it could prove to be a lifeline for one
of America’s most critical industries — supplying more food for the country than any other state.
Costing billions and built using cutting-edge tech,
this massive megaproject might just have the power to turn the tide.
This is Sacramento — capital of California and the
best place to live in the whole state … apparently.
Close to spectacular forests and lakes, and just two hours from San Francisco,
you can see why it’s popular.
But while everything appears great on the surface of the city,
there are some serious issues lying beneath.
The Sacramento Valley is now starting to sink. This is called land subsidence
and we’ve been seeing this for years throughout the San Joaquin Valley.
Yes, the very land that it lies on has been sinking for years,
in a region that has just come through one of the worst droughts in its history.
What’s causing this? Well, look at where it’s located — next to
the Sacramento River, the largest in California.
When this isn’t flowing properly, like in recent times, many farmers are left
with no choice but to start pumping groundwater to irrigate their crops.
And yet, even this source is starting to run out,
and removing all that water from the ground is causing the land to subside.
Although there’s no single solution, one nearby megaproject is transforming the way
water is reused across the state — including by farmers — and the impact that could make is huge.
Since 1982, the 1.6 million people that live in and around Sacramento have relied on this.
If you don’t recognise the type of infrastructure, it does a job that we prefer not to think about,
but without it, well, things would get very messy, very quickly.
It’s called the Sacramento Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Yes, this is where 135 million gallons of wastewater from sewers and industries in
the area is treated every single day, before it’s discharged into the Sacramento River.
That water then flows into the California Delta,
where it either becomes groundwater, or ends up in the San Francisco Bay.
The plant quietly went about its business for almost 30 years, but in 2010, that all changed.
A permit was issued by the local regulator in charge of water quality that placed heavy
restrictions on the amount of ammonia and nitrates allowed in the treated water.
Because this facility wasn’t filtering out enough of these harmful chemicals under the new rules,
it would have to undergo significant enhancements.
Fast forward to today, more than a decade and USD $1.7BN later,
a huge programme of work to make this critical infrastructure compliant has just finished.
Called the EchoWater Project, it consisted of multiple individual
upgrades across this massive site, which is owned and operated by Regional San.
There were 22 separate projects,
all supporting or enhancing the process to make it more reliable and more efficient.
Essentially we touched every part of the plant from our communications, electrical,
chemical water systems. We were touching everything.
Overall, it required more than 40,000 tons
of steel and 170,000 cubic metres of concrete overall during construction.
A lot of that went towards the Tertiary Treatment Facilities,
where the disinfection, and much of the filtration, takes place.
It’s made up of over a dozen concrete structures,
pumping stations, electrical installations and more.
But at the centre of the plant, now the second largest of its kind in
the United States, is the BNR. That stands for Biological Nutrient Removal facility.
It consists of eight giant basins filled with special tubes, which release oxygen
into the wastewater, allowing bacteria to form.
The bacteria’s task is to remove organic matter,
99% of the ammonia and 89% of nitrogen from the water.
This means the treated water that comes out at the end now meets those requirements set back in 2010.
How does the whole system work, I hear you cry? Well, here’s a very basic summary.
First, the unprocessed wastewater comes into the inlet works and primary sedimentation tanks.
It’s where larger pieces of organic matter and small grit particles are
removed, and the sludge and scum are filtered out. Lovely, lovely stuff.
Then, it enters the BNR where the bacteria do their thing. After that, it moves on to
these enormous tanks called clarifiers, where the bacteria are taken back out.
Next, the water is filtered one more time,
before it’s disinfected with chlorine and then neutralised.
That’s pretty much it — the water is now ready to be introduced to the river,
it’s safer for the environment than before,
and soon those farmers will be benefiting in a big way. More on that in a bit.
The construction of this project began back in 2015, and took seven years. With several
projects happening at the same time across a site that had to remain operational throughout,
the planning and management of the build was incredibly complex.
For what we were trying to do, it was very compressed. There was overlapping
design and construction projects through the life of the programme.
We had to pay very, very close attention working closely with the operations staff
on all the various tie-ins to the processes to make sure that we can continue operations.
Vick and his team had to find a way to prepare for all the necessary shutdowns. They also knew
they would need some kind of technology to help them plan the many huge construction sequences.
The solution was this — a digital twin of the facility created using SYNCHRO
and iTwin software from today's video sponsor Bentley Systems.
We had a very strict concrete pour requirement on this project where
you really could not pour back adjacent pours because it was going to expand
and these were water holding structures — massive,
18 football fields of water holding structures — so we really couldn’t afford a lot of leaks.
Just trying to schedule or plan those sequences is in our opinion
impossible without the use of a digital twin.
Designed and supplied by Project Controls Cubed,
a local digital construction specialist, the digital twin is a complete virtual
replica fully synced with every aspect of the physical site and its many components.
Various users, from designers to contractors could use the digital twin to prepare for and carry out
all the tasks that had to be done, identifying problems in advance and working in real time.
Can you imagine being able to manage almost 100,000 activities? How can you manage that?
The digital twin really gave us that platform that we were able to catch an error just like that.
Anybody can see it, right? In a matter of seconds, you can catch it.
What we did is we put situational awareness in front of these amazingly brilliant people,
which allowed them to make time sensitive decisions that were proactive instead of reactive.
With the digital twin it was possible to take regular 3D
models and integrate them in a 5D environment.
What the digital twin does is it elevates it and takes it to a whole other level.
You're taking your 3D object — your static object — and you're tying it
to a schedule activity. Not only that, you can study the costs, the budget, right?
You see, keeping costs down was essential, and not just because the project was part-funded by
Sacramento area customers, whose bills went up to help pay for the project.
Coming in under budget could allow the excess cash to be spent on other
upgrades, and that’s exactly what happened, to the tune of $400M.
Yes, a large public infrastructure scheme that actually cost less than what it was supposed to.
Now, the leftover money is being used to fund the next step — one
of the largest agricultural reuse projects in the US.
Regional San is building a new pump station and pipelines that will direct that cleaner
water from the upgraded plant down to southern Sacramento County.
Up to 16,000 acres of land used for agriculture or habitat conservation
will be irrigated with this new supply, with the first phase due to complete in 2025.
That would mean a lot less groundwater pumping,
allowing levels to recover, along with more sustainable farming.
In a region desperate for a new water source after years of lost farmland and
falling crop revenues — finally, some good news.
A water treatment facility might not sound like a big deal, but this is a
kind of infrastructure that’s as critical to keeping our world running as any other,
and they don’t come much more important than this one.
When droughts and shortages are likely to become more common in the future,
the city of Sacramento at least might be about to see one of its biggest problems washed away.
This video was brought to you by Bentley. You can learn more about them at the link below.
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