Hollywood Water Quality Improvement Project

The award-winning Hollywood Water Quality Improvement Project, completed in 2001 and located in the environmentally sensitive Hollywood Hills in Southern California, bypasses the Upper and Lower Hollywood Reservoirs, which could no longer meet federal and state water quality requirements. The new system provides a safer, more dependable water supply to over 500,000 residents.  This $92 million project consisted of a 1-mile-long (1.6 km), 10.5-foot-diameter (3.2 m), steel-lined water supply tunnel; a 1,200-foot-long (366 m) utility tunnel; and two buried 30-million-gallon (114 million liter) prestressed concrete water storage tanks. Construction of the tanks required 1 million cubic yards (764,555 cubic meters) of excavation and placement of the excavated material in adjacent fill sites. Initial support in the tunnels consisted of either precast concrete segmental lining or steel ribs and lagging.

Jacobs Associates led a multiple-firm team that provided independent project peer review (IPPR) and construction management (CM) services. The IPPR encompassed the design of the entire project: tunnels; water storage tanks; related structures; and all mechanical, electrical, and control systems. CM services consisted of overall construction management and resident engineering for major components of the tunnels and water storage tanks, office engineering, scheduling and cost estimating, management of materials testing, and QA/QC inspections.

The system became fully operational in July 2001 and officially in-compliance in November 2001, exceeding schedule requirements. In 2002, the Hollywood project received the “Outstanding Underground Project” award from the American Underground Construction Association.