Silicon Valley Clean Water Gravity Pipeline Project Earns National and Regional Awards

Since 2017, Kennedy Jenks has served as the Program Manager on Silicon Valley Clean Water’s (SVCW) $580M RESCU Program, which has recently earned national and regional recognition for its Gravity Pipeline Project.

In early November 2023, the SVCW Gravity Pipeline Project earned several national awards from the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) at their annual awards banquet including:

• 2023 National Award of Merit, Water/Wastewater category
• 2023 National Award of Excellence, Water/Wastewater category
• 2023 Best in Design Award – Engineering category

Additionally, SVCW is the inaugural recipient of the 2023 I.N.S.P.I.R.E.D Owner Award, which recognizes an innovative newcomer that showcases preparedness, insight, readiness, and enduring diligence in the project execution.

In October 2023, ENR California named the SVCW Gravity Pipeline the Northern California Best Project in Water/Environment. The pipeline was among 26 Best Projects chosen out of 75 projects across California and Hawaii through an independent review of architecture, construction, and engineering (AEC) experts.

The SVCW Gravity Pipeline has also received the APWA Silicon Valley Chapter Award for 2023 Best Project in the Large (>$25M) Utilities Category, as well as the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) 2023 Project of the Year Award and the Water Conveyance and Distribution Award.

The complex $250M project included the installation of the first use of 11-ft diameter. It also required custom-built equipment to install the pipe inside the tunnel over a mile from nearest access point, further adding to the complexity of the project. By embracing progressive design-build project delivery, SVCW was able to maintain a cost-effective plan and fast-track the overall construction process.

This project truly showcases not only an extraordinary project, but also how the team went above and beyond to achieve cost, schedule and quality goals, and to demonstrate the unique applications of design-build best practices,

— award notification letter from the DBIA

KJ served as pre-design engineer, then served as Owner’s Advisor on the tunnel project, a technical oversight role with participation from our key partner at Mott McDonald. The gravity pipeline is one of three project in SVCW’s RESCU Program that KJ oversees as Program Manager. The other two projects, referenced as the Front of Plant, and the Pump Station Improvements projects, involve construction of new wastewater conveyance facilities and completing upgrades to existing infrastructure that will connect the existing wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) to the new facilities. This work will significantly improve capacity, efficiency, and sustainability of wastewater treatment for the region.