Summary:
The City’s Council-approved ten-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) includes the CAP/LPP Intersection Wellfield (UT00523) project and provides funding for the addition of up to five new potable water recovery wells and associated pipelines needed to transport the water to a central treatment facility.
Staff identified this project as part of an overall plan to address possible water supply challenges associated with uncertainty on the Colorado River. The proposed wells will increase access to water previously stored underground as well as existing groundwater. Should significant cuts to the City’s Central Arizona Project (CAP) direct supply occur, access to these other water sources will be required to ensure Water Services can reliably meet community demands. These wells are identified as needs in the City’s Integrated Water Utility Master Plan (IWUMP), but recent events on the Colorado River have increased the urgency to complete the project.
The City’s ten-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) also includes a companion project, UT00526 Zone 6E Reservoir & Booster Pump Station, which consists of a regional storage reservoir, a booster pump station, and associated water treatment and pipeline systems. These two combined projects, UT00523 and UT00526, will supply all of the infrastructure necessary to convey water from the five new wells to the existing Peoria water supply system. These two projects are being designed and constructed concurrently to meet the aggressive project schedule. UT00526 is not the subject of this proposed Council action and this background information is intended to give a full picture of the overall effort to provide this redundant water supply.
The Water Services Department hired Archer Western Construction LLC as the Design-Build team for the wellfield project in June of 2023. To date, only exploratory drilling work has been completed in the area. It was anticipated that final drilling at each proposed location would start in March of 2024, however, the contractor was not able to begin construction due to delays in land and easement acquisition from the Arizona State Land Department (ASLD) and Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix (Diocese). Of the five proposed wells, three are located on state trust land and two are located on private property owned by the Diocese. Negotiations with both parties have been ongoing since the project began in late 2022.
Staff instructed the Design-Build team to break out the two wells proposed on Diocese property into a separate guaranteed maximum price (GMP) in an effort to bring construction back on schedule assuming that the land acquisition effort with ASLD would take much longer. Staff negotiated the terms of the agreement in partnership with the City Attorney’s Office and the Diocese legal counsel which resulted in the attached Well Site Drilling, Design, Service, and Construction Exchange Agreement, which has been agreed to by all parties. This agreement is beneficial to both parties, as it grants utility and access easements and transfers ownership of land from the Diocese to the City to construct the two well sites and associated water distribution mains, while granting the Diocese assured access to the City’s potable water supply produced by these two wells. Without this agreement, the Diocese would have had to extend a significant amount of water infrastructure to their property as part of their development plan. The City further benefits from acquiring the Diocese land by allowing early construction of two of the five proposed well sites ensuring a quicker assurance of a redundant water supply system should cuts to the CAP supply become a reality.
With approval of this agreement, the project team anticipates drilling for these two sites to begin in July, with a goal to bring both wells online by late 2025.